The Major's Asylum
by Servant of Fire
Summary: AU Many Happy Returns. John is grieving Sherlock's death, when Mycroft and Greg reveal to him a video made 10 years before his and Sherlock's supposed first meeting. John learns that he has had Pyschogenic Amnesia since the fire fight in Afghanistan that invalided him, and begins to remember the last case MI6 detective consultant Sherlock Holmes was working on. One Major Sholto's.
1. Prolouge

**The Major's Asylum~**

**To the Giver of Peace, with love~**

**Prolouge~**

John was drunk, but not drunk enough to suit himself. There was no glass deep enough that his sorrow wasn't deeper, but maybe that's because his love was even deeper than his grief.

It had been a year since Sherlock Holmes jumped off that bloody rooftop. One year. 365 days, without him in the world.

The same sharp pain, like being impaled with something as blunt as a pizza paddle, went straight up John's spine. His head was light, so he took another swig of the awful alcoholic drink he was swilling.

"Cheap plonk." he hissed, and leaned back, in his chair, shuddering.

One year. 365 days without him in the world.

How was John even breathing still? How had he survived that night? Well, he had passed out when he got home. Took one look at Sherlock's empty chair, and felt the hollow echo of a world now void of him, and his legs just buckled beneath him, and he woke up some time late the next afternoon to the telephone ringing, and it just didn't stop ringing ,and he had laid on the floor for the remainder of that day,moving nary a single time, and didn't answer a single ring, either.

And the next day Greg came in the room, and he was too hollow now to be angry with him for anything. And he barely heard him say that they'd made funeral arrangements, and that John needed to get up.

Greg and John would never discuss how he had helped him change into a suit, a rather fancy one Mycroft himself had furnished. How Greg had even helped John wash his face, because he'd soiled it with tears ,and he had vomited in disgust when he realized he had Sherlock's bloodstains on his hands still. Greg and John never talked about how Greg's legs gave out going down stairs either, and John had caught him,and they clung to each other nervously for a long moment and cried.

Nobody said a word when John took one look at the casket, and started to waver. It was closed. It was closed because the one in it was too mangled to reveal.

Was no longer in the world. Had taken himself out of it.

John endured Sherlock's funeral sitting not on a pew, but in a wheel chair. So dumbstruck with grief as to not need sedation. But wearing his brave soldier's mask ,and shaking hands as if he was of a sound and stable mind. And if anybody who didn't know the obvious, such as Sebastian from Uni, actually deigned to ask _why _John was in the chair, he would reply with a cheeky smile, "Oh, I fell."

Fallen he had. Fallen from grace ,the same day _he _ had fallen from out of the sky. Fallen to his face. Stone cold... like statues...

Dead.

Dead and Sherlock. Two synonymous words, that should not be so, should not be in the same sentence, because Sherlock simply could not BE dead. It was absurd.

But dead he was. 365 days, each consisting of 24 hours. 365- 24- hour- days in which Sherlock Holmes was no longer in the world.

What a boring world that was...

The door bell rang,( of a new flat, John could NOT stay _there_...not with his shadow hanging as thickly on the walls as dust in ancient tombs). Everything cold, like darkness, like Death.

Dead. Gone. Sherlock. Why?

Wearily, John answered it. Opened the door a crack,and looked out.

There stood Greg, pale as the beloved ghost that haunted John's every waking moment. And Mycroft as well, himself resembling his brother enough to also be a reflection of the man that was no more.

"What do you want?" he asked the two of them roughly, swaggering.

"You are drunk, Doctor Watson. I'm glad, you might receive this more easily, in that case."says Mycroft ,and shoves his way inside.

"Receive, what?" John asks , waspishly.

"John..." Greg said, holding up a dvd. "You...need to sit down."

"No, no more tricks. No more, I won't help with anything. Get out."

"We aren't asking you to help. Actually, we're forcing you into protective custody. But before we do such a thing, we would like for Sherlock to explain to you why." Mycroft says boredly.

John is vicious as a starved tiger at that name," HE'S DEAD ,YOU GIT! HE'S DEAD! DON'T SAY HIS NAME!"

Greg went to John, and caught him around the waist. "Easy, it's ok...it's ok..He means in the video. Just calm down. And watch the dvd I brought, it will all make perfect sense ,then."

Mycroft put it in the player, and the two men sat on either side of John, trying to gently restrain him , to prepare him for whatever terrible thing involving Sherlock they were about to force him to watch.

Oh why couldn't they leave him alone? Wasn't making him watch his best friend DIE enough?!

Suddenly the black screen flickered to life. Two soldier's saluted one another on camera but out of clear sight. One was very young, tall and dark.

He was led before a white wall.

"What am I supposed to...how do I?" was asking an eerily familiar voice.

"Your sworn duty is the truth, Detective. You know what to do." said another voice.

The young soldier, in the dark camo and a black vest belonging more so to MI6 agents,so John thought, turned to face the camera.

John was jolted fully awake, and almost sober. Very suddenly he was face to face with Sherlock Holmes again, except he was in military uniform and he was a good 10 years younger than when John knew him.

Or rather when John had been reacquainted with him.

For in that moment the young doctor realized before they had met that fateful afternoon in the St. Bart's lab and discussed looking at a flat...a long ,long time before, they had met in another lab, in another life.

Before they had been flat mates, they had been comrades in Afghanistan. The shadow of a 17-year-old secret services cadet runs across his mind, and catches his breath.

John's jaw clicks open, and he cries ,forgetting he is not alone in the room ,fuming, angry at everyone for keeping him in the dark about the true nature of his friendship with Sherlock Holmes,as the silky baritone he has heard only in dreams for far too long speaks to the camera:

_As I'm pressed for time, let us skip straight to the point._

_Many years from now, there will be those who say that I invented the Consulting Criminal, one James Moriarty. But this is not the truth. He actually invented me. Here's my story._

_My name is Sherlock Holmes. The current year is 2004, and I am 21 years old. By day I am known as the amateur detective that solves trifle little puzzles for New Scotland Yard. This career is only a cover to the true nature of my Work._

_I am myself an agent of MI6, with massive intellectual capabilities,and a very specific skill set I call the "science of deduction". Out of this skill set I created my own authorized unit within the service. I am a Consulting Detective,the first extant,and possibly the only one that ever shall exist. My job is simple: when MI6 is out of its depth-which is always-they come to me. I do the Work of a military police grade detective, and pave roads to criminals that are unreachable by the Law of the lands in which they cancerously plant themselves._

_This video was created following the assassination attempt of one young Captain John Watson, M.D., the personal physician of the controversial Major Sholto._

_If you are watching this video, then it means that my mission is compromised. The Drug Lords of James Moriarty, calling themselves _"Asphyxia"_have sabotaged me, and I have made agreements, to protect the life of the good doctor, while securing the confidentiality of aforesaid mission. _

_If you are watching this video, I have most likely been neutralized, along with any threat._

_However, the Network of Jim Moriarty remains, and to take it down, I will have to pretend to be someone totally else, someone less than my recognized potential. For Moriarty must be stopped, the very Pax Autem Mundi depends upon it!_

_It should be noted that I will give the very last drop of my blood to guarantee that young Doctor Watson is not a casualty of this mission. He is precisely the reason why I accepted said mission, and his life is the priority,regardless._

With that Sherlock stood,and saluted, and the camera went black.

And then John remembered everything...


	2. Chpter 1: First Meetings in Another Life

**Chapter One: First Meetings in Another Life~**

_John's eyes misted over with tears, as the memories came flooding back, of the very beginning of his military career, when he was still in medical school. Of the very first time he had laid eyes on Sherlock Holmes._

"Oh, you are gonna LOVE it here, John!" Mike Stamford was saying jovially, an arm, not as fat as his arms were in the present, throwing itself around young John Watson's shoulders, very slightly knocking the young man, (practically boy) off balance, and tilting his cap to the side.

"These summer classes will only put us both closer to our careers when we go back to study at Bart's this fall! And being in this remote military facility, God-knows-where (but Lee West said he heard it was somewhere in the south of Wales) we are bound to have all sorts of adventures! And the girls ,John! The BEACH IS SWARMED WITH GIRLS!" Mike went on babbling. John was trying to listen ,but the cares of home were drowning it all out.

With a whole family of alcoholics, and a father who could never be pleased, awaiting him at home, John anticipated the summer only with the absolute necessity to succeed. He must become military personnel of some rank, or his father would never forgive him. His father would never forgive him anyway ,but at least John could look him in the eye then. Could say he did something with that rowdy teenager (well he was still a teenager, technically, being 19 years old) that was practically addicted to danger, and had gotten into all sorts of trouble in his pre-Uni years.

It had hit him completely out of left field, like a meteor crashing to the earth that day ,when into his life walked that one strange youth that would eternally alter his entire world.

Or rather he was always there, in the shadow,and it was Mike that walked John through his door, and set fate in motion.

"Well, speaking of girls, John!" Mike said in a sing-song voice, " I may have promised an utterly adorable brunette coffee. Which is why I will leave you with the Teach."

"The Teach?" John asked ,bewildered.

A voice as deep as thunder suddenly spoke from somewhere in the lab,

"He means me of course."

The moment John laid eyes on him, his soul was magnetically bonded to him, though John wouldn't ever be able to put that into words. He felt his heart skip a beat, startled,as the strange dark young man, with the very high pale features, and the knife sharp blue eyes stepped into the light of his vision for the very first time.

" Oi, John! Wish me luck!" Mike called, and slammed the door on his way out.

"Yeah, right!" John called, not half as sarcastic as it may have sounded, attention pricked by the new soul that had entered the room.

"Sorry, have we met?" John asked, feeling as if they already had known each other for thousands of years, somehow.

He glanced over John one time, and said,

"You are the son of a very prominent officer, who imposes his doctrines of manhood so heavily upon you that you have developed a bit of an identity complex. Your mother and sister are both heavy drinkers, and, although he denies doing so, your father is enabling them, as he buys and partakes of the liquor himself. They gave you bloody awful plonk on your birthday the year you were old enough to drink,and so you have a severe distaste for all alcohol,and furthermore what it will do to your stomach. Whilst the thrill of the military intrigues you, your desire was truly to be in medicine, which is why you are studying to become an army medic... Also, you don't really like the cap they make you wear."

John's jaw drops. He takes in the image before him with a measured breath. The boy is taller than him, by quite a bit, with almost elven features, silver green eyes, and silky raven hair. He's dressed in the same uniform a new recruit would wear, except he is wearing a black vest John hasn't seen any one in before, and a black leather cap. The boy has just basically recited John's life story, but ,cataloguing every detail of him that he sees, John can't even come up with a name.

"I'm sorry-this is more embarrassing than you could POSSIBLY imagine but...I have bloody well forgotten you!" he gasps, shaking his head. "Were we in college together ,or something?"

The boy curls a brow, "We've never met before?"

John goes deathly quiet. "How'd you know all of that ...about me... then?

The boy's brows flutter ,as if this is a stupid question.

"Oh. I didn't know it. I just observed you."

An awkward silence passed between them.

"Who are you?" John asked, suddenly spooked. Why had Mike left him with such an...interesting...individual?

The boy blinked again,as if this should be obvious.

"I'm the lab instructor."

"You? How OLD are you?"

John was further embarrassed thinking he may have mistaken this obviously -old- enough- to -be- his teacher man for a boy roughly around his own age.

"I'm 16. Why do you ask?"

Now John is just utterly baffled.

"16. You're the lab instructor, and you're 16!?"

The boy blinked, "Problem?"

John laughed, and extended a hand, "No, no ,not at all. John Watson, Colonel Donald Watson's son, so that bit you ...err...observed right."

"I usually am right." the boy replied, taking the offered hand, with a firm shake.

"Well?"John laughed,and the boy looked at him confused, not letting go of the hand that firmly clasped his own.

"Well,what?"the boy's dark brows twisted in confusion.

"Got a name?"

He smiled then,for the first time ,

"Sherlock Holmes. Yeah, I know, my parents are eccentric; the name itself is on some sort of acid..."

John laughed pleasantly,and they at last broke the cordially hand-shake.

" You're the first of my students to actually introduce yourself." said Sherlock.

"I actually don't even wanna be here, to be honest with you. Mike bunked off to go flirting with some brunette..."

"Michael Stamford? The one I caught snogging with one Aura Baldwing in the maintenance closet?"

"Oi, so he didn't introduce himself either then?"

"Not properly, anyway. He was rather chatty after I found them,though."

The two of them erupted into giggles, like old friends meeting for the first time in eons.

"I'm _your _student. But I'm _older _than you are, that's...God, that will take a while to get used to."John laughed.

"You're 19 years old."

"How'd you know that?"

"Observed..."

"How in bloody hell I haven't the faintest, but if that's the case you are AMAZINGLY observant, Mr. Holmes."

"Oh please, don't make it any more of a strain. I already feel too old for my age ,as it is. Just Sherlock ,please, except in class. In class you may call me Teach, everybody does."

"Very well, _Sherlock._"

"As you appear to be a promising student, I shall give you the privilege of a proper tour of our "classroom" ,if you like?"

"Well, it's either that or try to go find Mike and his latest snogging partner?"

The two of them broke into a giggle fit, and the sound of their merry laughter was like bells announcing the birth of a beautiful friendship.


	3. Chapter 2: The Best of Times

**Chapter 2: The Best of Times~**

_John hit his knees, in the center of his new living room. Mycroft was saying something now, but sounded like someone talking to him from the surface of an unfathomable ocean;he couldn't hear a word of it even if he cared to. Greg was consoling him, or trying to, and shouting something to Mycroft like "What in blazes is this all about, then?" The outer world was darkened now, like candle light,and felt as detached as death. John could almost taste the heavy lingering perfume of roses in the air,(the scent that he associated almost chiefly with funerals) that accompanied the approach of the morose feelings that reminded him of that one soul that his own was knit with like fabric._

_All he could see was Sherlock now. Like Jonathan to David was that youth to him. He remembers now how they just went crazy over each other, and how the other students made fun of them, but it was totally NOT a romantic attraction. Mycroft called it symbiosis, and that was more correct..._

It was a day somewhere in the middle of their first month of classes. The other students had been making very explicit jokes about John and his teacher. John was going from "over-blown cross" to " ready -to- fight- Irish" with the next person that breathed a word about Sherlock Holmes. Mike was blushing a deep burgundy, wondering if the jokes were true, as John so vehemently protested that he was NOT gay (although Mike knew that his sister was)?

And then everybody shut up, the silence almost loud by contrast, when their young teacher swooped into the room with a loud thud of the door, his startling presence sliding across the stillness of the lab, and he came to a stop, almost as abruptly and gracefully as an eagle lights on the crown of a tree. He looked up, one brow curled, suspiciously ,seeing how John's eyes bulged with rage, and how Mike was practically wine stained with embarrassment.

"Good morning." Teach said.

The students began to dig their toes into the linoleum, totally ashamed before their teacher, their embarrassment only intensified by the fact that his very presence held them all mute better than remote control, and he wasn't even enlistment age yet, barely old enough to shave!

No one greeted him in return. John couldn't look at him , or anything other than the floor.

"Right, so, if my observations don't fail me ,which is almost never, the lot of you have been discussing extracurricular activity normally associated with University? Right ,and if I have heard tell correctly , people normally find one individual to be the butt of their incessant verbal torments? May I be the first of your professors to set you straight on one thing; this is not a normal University, it is a military academy, that is staffed by agents current ,former, and pending of MI6. You are only here because your fathers were admirable men of the Royal Services, and for the sakes of their reputations you will behave here as respectfully as gentlemen, as soldiers, if not in uniform, than with the habitual decorum and discipline of character as soldiers on leave, am I clearly understood?"

The students were suddenly deathly quiet, not having expected such authority ,(or furthermore such a VOICE, as quite a few of them were only starting in this class today) from their 16-year-old-geek professor.

John looked up, actually amazed, for the umpteenth time by his junior friend. There were times when the youth seemed far older and wiser than even the adult senior officer professors of this mystery academy.

But he had met his gaze when he looked up, and in his silver-green eyes he saw the glitter of mischief only belonging to a boy.

" Military academy or not, this is MY classroom, and therefore you will apply yourselves to the established protocol I have given all of my students before you. Which is simply, while you are here, while you are physically occupying this room, your only conversation, your only THOUGHT,is attributed to your work. So, the next person that makes a crack about Watson and I "having it on", or some such, (which is an utterly absurd statement, certainly having no basis in fact or even enough wispy evidence to the figments of scuttlebutt your breed comes up with after hours!-) will spend the remainder of this program studying Charletta's brain matter."

He diverted his gaze to a glass case full of purplish- green squid remains. The class followed his gaze, but Sherlock discreetly turned to John,and winked, for which the young-doctor-to-be was eternally grateful, and had to bite into his lip enough to cut it, to suppress laughter.

"Hardly appealing..."Sherlock said with an absent sigh, and ,ignoring the dizzying greenness on the other boys faces, he said,

"Alright, so, back to our main focus..." he walked to a chalk board ,and began diagramming something that ,just to look at, made most of the boys heads spin. But John watched him utterly fascinated, as much so with his teacher as he was the assignment. "Take your seats, or use some of the buckets laying around."

The boys looked at him,and blinked. "What? Did you expect it to be glamorous? This is a MILITARY academy, gentleman, you aren't going to be treated as royalty here! Now, there are folding chairs for some, the rest of you lot can find buckets and stools, or just be like Mr. Watson, and Mr. West here and sit cross-legged on the floor."

"Oi, he talks like a bloke from Dickens!" a boy hissed, and Sherlock zeroed in on him, " Yes, indeed I do, thank you, Mr. Silver! Which there is a reason for this, as there is a reason that I do everything that I do. You will become well acquainted with all of my methods, as well as my speech, if you are to want to pass this course, and not go home to a father who will kick your hinder-end every which way of Canterbury should you fail this class in particular."

The boy shut up then, wide-eyed, and plunked down on the floor beside John.

"Now, where was I?Oh,yes...Turn with me in your books to illustration B of "Atomic Structure..."

John breezed through the class, asking most of the questions, if only to have an excuse to speak with his under-aged professor, during the actual session. Sherlock had a look of pure delight on his face every time his hand shot up, equally eager to speak to his most promising student.A class is always world's more easy when you love the subject, and such a beautiful friendship(NOT romance...) had been born from it, that John found he loved chemistry very much indeed.

He lingered in the room, as the other boys breezed out, Mike practically skipping to a ginger by the name of Penelope waiting in the hall way, as this was always the last of their daily classes, and they were all free till tomorrow morning at 8 bells sharp.

John stood by the end of the table where the chem kits were all set up, that doubled as Sherlock's desk, watching as the boy professor flipped through all the answer sheets for that day.

He smiled as brightly as his dark aura could manage when he came to John's paper.

"I must say, you are shaping up to be a MARVELLOUS chemist. If you are half so skilled as a field surgeon as you are at being my student, you will be an utter phenomenon."

"Oh, uhm, thank,thank you..." John laughed,suddenly modest. "But it really isn't me, I just have an excellent teacher."

"Take some credit where it's due, I can give you the information, but I can't make you understand it. This is brilliant, well done!"

Sherlock stood up, eyes flashing along with his smile. John laughed merrily, because now school was over and they weren't teacher-pupil anymore,they were just two boys beginning a military career,who had become the best of friends basically overnight.

John smiled, almost at a loss for words. And then he said the first thing that popped into his head,

"You said this school was staffed all by agents of MI6. You're part of the staff...does that make you...an agent?"

Sherlock laughed, "An agent to be. My elder brother ,Mycroft Holmes, has just recently arisen to a position in the British government,mostly for the purposes of maintaining national security, but he basically is the British government incarnate. He is the one who first taught me the science of deduction, my observational skills I have used in your presence very frequently?.Recognizing that I had genius potential, he spoke with his superiors concerning my gift, and they agreed to send me to this school when I was in year 6. Then I became apprenticed to the service, along with my childhood best mate, and personal assistant, pathologist- in- training Molly Hooper; you'll probably meet her when you go to Bart's..."

"You aren't studying to be anything in the medical field. What are you going to use this genius potential for?"

Sherlock smiled almost dreamily then...

_A look of youth belonging to a boy, so unlike and so very much like the cold,almost machine of a man John had known after his invalidation. He could see it as if it was happening this very instance in his mind's eye, that moment marking the very beginning of all their adventures, and tears bemoaning the best of times, rained gently down is face._

" Well, actually,no one, not even Mycroft knew at first how it could benefit the service, but as soon as the genius was recognized, I was basically betrothed to my Work. I had to undergo a battery of "career tests" to see what I was "cut out for" but none of them amounted to anything. In the end, I invented my own career. I was determined to be put in criminal justice; you might say it is my life's sworn duty. And so I invented the aspect of a "consulting detective" a detective that other justice officials come to when they have a problem that is totally baffling. The services said this was absolutely perfect, and so it was decided that my necessary schooling would be provided. I will have to enlist officially on my 17th birthday. I will attend a civilian university as well, one of Mycroft's choice. But then when all that formality rubbish is done with, I will be put on the field, somewhere in the Middle East, as a consultant for military police."

"Agatha Cristie meets James Bond?" John laughed.

"Uh,...yeah." Sherlock said , a brow crinkled.

"You don't know what I'm talking about do you?"

"Aaaahhhh..no?"

John laughed, clapping a hand on his back, "So brilliant,and so naive all at once!"

"I already solve some puzzles. For practice. I tried to tip New Scotland Yard off on a few occasions,but I was too little to be taken seriously. One day, when I'm on leave, I will work for them as a cover of my true agent identity...So basically my whole bloody life has been mapped out for me."

"Yeah I felt like that too, until I came here."

"How's that, this school wasn't your choice?"

"No...And I thought I was going to thoroughly despise it. I'm a bit resentful of my life being decided for me."

"Hmmph, I feel the same."

John smiled, " My snobby father never saw you coming though. For once, I have made a choice of my own. A friendship. It's the best choice I've ever made."

Sherlock smiled brightly, "Hungry?"

"Famished."

And from that day forward after class, John joined Sherlock for a meal of some sort, or on one of his "practice" adventures.

It was the very best of times.

Until the War, and that business with Major Sholto, and the circumstances leading up to John's losing Sherlock the first time...


	4. Chapter 3: Scandal Beyond Your Control

**Chapter 3: A Scandal Beyond Your Control~**

John reeled and the room was suddenly spinning, but he was pulled up out of his memories now, realizing that it was all reality, and not some twisted dream.

"How...how could he do that to me,...knowing...knowing why I was like that for so long...knowing that I ...lost him ,...before?"

Into John's thoughts flashes one last horrific memory, and he seizes Mycroft by the coat tails, and shrieks a long "WHY?" at the image of it...

_John's just finishing up with the boys they'd pulled off the field last night, still pretty mangled, and some of them didn't make it...but the majority of them were going to live to fight another day, and in the end it felt like a victory, despite the devastating casualties of some of the boys that he knew... _

_That's when he looked across the field, and he saw Major Sholto talking with none other than Sherlock Holmes._

_The "big brother" instinct in John's gut was screaming in protest at Sherlock's even being here. The kid was barely 21, and already his career had seen more horrors than generations of seasoned veterans combined._

_The Major bowed his head..."I am to be held responsible for this...to keep up appearances to the public ,for some one must bear the blame." he said, referencing last month, when he lead a bunch of new recruits into the fight and only he survived, and he was scathed to the point of needing prosthetic limbs._

_Sherlock was nodding reverently,not saying a word, trying as ever to remain stoic, though inwardly he was screaming at the injustice of this, because the incident, as evidence would yield was actually NOT Sholto's fault._

_"And I will suffer the consequences to the penance of my own conscious...for my own conscious holds me to blame. I should have been more apt to suppress Moriarty's mutinous action."_

_Sherlock shook his head now, protocol cast to the wind,_

_"With all due respect ,Major, there was absolutely no action, on your part, that could have lessened the gravity of this situation in any form. Moriarty was a wild card agent; I had the misfortune of working with him in several missions where my Work must merge with MI5. Now the entirety of the UK is under surveillance ,and growing fear, as this maniac was one of MI5's very own,scaling his way up the ranks from as low down as the typing pool. And the Thames House, I hear ,is on lock down for fear of their own agents. Tell me ,Major, could faster reflexes on your part, have stopped such a chain reaction? Wouldn't that be like firing a bullet into a nuclear blast and expecting it to neutralize the bomb?"_

_The Major nodded, "You are right,as ever, Detective Holmes. And as I am to be discharged, for the grieving widows and mothers must have someone to blame for Moriarty's slaughter of their sons, this is me consulting you with a civilian concern..."_

_Sherlock sighed,and bowed his head, "It is a regrettable day ,sir, when premeditated murder,and vicious mutiny can be hidden under the cloak of a sprung upon fire fight..."_

_Sholto laid both his hands on Sherlock's shoulders, and the boy lifted his head._

_"War is hell, Sherlock. You and I know that better than most. We can't undo Moriarty's scheme; he will only act again. If he is capable of dealing drugs with the enemy to build up his own base of friends, and then leading the lambs right to slaughter before commanding the fight that took his own comrades lives without mercy, -like a proper bloody Judas!-, then he is capable of anything..."_

_Sherlock huffed, the weight of the world on his scrawny shoulders. He would shape up to be a very slim man in his full maturity, but as of 2004, he was still only just 21 years old, and basically still had the knobby knees of a teenager. It frightened John to see him in uniform, with dust of the desert, and blood specks from various grazings checkering him._

_"Your superiors have consulted you to go straight into the lion's den,to break up this mysterious " Asphyxia", to cut off the snake's head and neutralize (or at least weaken) Moriarty, before he turns the Afghani conflict into the Apocalypse. You are being sent alone, only a child, into the very heart of hell. And for John's sake(My God!, I've grown to love him!)I would ,if I only had the power!,forbid this. Despite what people say, I'm not a fan of collateral damage!"_

_Sherlock swallowed, unable to speak. This was so wrong..._

_"You must swear to me, on your honor as a soldier of the United Kingdom, and on your sworn duty as an agent of criminal justice,in England first,and the world over, that you will give your enemy utter hell , and get yourself home alive! You will do it ,and you will do it for John's sake, because that boy LOVES you ,Sherlock, and I don't think he will be able to survive a world without you in it. Am I clearly understood?"_

_Sherlock stood at a crisp attention,and saluted him, "Sir, yes sir, I will attempt survival to the uttermost of my ability, sir!" he croaked, voice not reaching the volume a soldier's ought, so heavy it was with supressed emotion. _

_Sholto swallowed, and laid a hand against the side of Sherlock's face, fingers pressed fondly in the raven mesh of hair, smoothing a strand away from the boy's dirt stained features._

_"I won't say goodbye." the Major said, and then turned, and hobbled away._

_Sherlock looked up at John, who stood staring at him slack-jawed._

_They'd come a long way from the classroom in these last 5 years. The Afghani sand clung to their camo uniforms,and John's red and white medic cross patch was more red now with the blood of the wounded. Sherlock 's alabaster features were hidden under the shadow gunpowder leaves behind._

_"Is...is it true? You're being sent into the Viper's Nest?" ( as was the nickname of the mysterious drug-and-guerilla-warrior operation away in the desert, composed of the same set of militants that Moriarty had conspired his mutiny with...)_

_Sherlock swallowed,and nodded almost imperceptibly. And then,scarcely able to breathe, John came silently to Sherlock,and tightly wrapped him in his arms, feeling the boy's arms tightly wrap about him in return._

_"My God..."John whispered, pressing his face into Sherlock's shoulder, trying to hide the quiver in his lips. Could show no tears, in case some of the men might see. Must always play the part of the brave soldier, when inside he was screaming because the boy in his arms, was a BOY in his arms, only just a kid...and although he knew Sherlock now had a startling reputation for successful missions, and although he knew Sherlock was practically full grown now, still he saw him as the boy-genius that had taught him the Periodic Table for course credit._

_Sherlock pulled John closer, and pressed his face into the young aspiring doctor's dirty hair. _

_"When we go home..." he said, trying to sound hopeful._

_Because there was a pretty slim chance either of them were going to live to see England again..._

_"When we get home." John echoed, trying to be brave for "little brother"._

_"I say we get a flat-share, in London. We could go halves, you and me, and solve little puzzles for New Scotland Yard. If the boys of MI6 prove to be incompetent half the time, and they are the finest, then how lousy could London's shoddy police force be,eh? Job security!"_

_"Mmmm, alright, I'm in, on one condition. We move to a neighbourhood where there are loads of attractive women for me to flirt with..."_

_"You have yourself a deal, Doctor Watson!"_

John wailed, shoving his fists into his eyes ,trying to forget how Sherlock didn't come back. How Sherlock was captured by the drug-lords, and was tortured on live-screen, and how he'd stood transfixed watching it all, being called in to attend the symptoms of an officer in that meeting who began to go into shock from what he witnessed. He tried to re -suppress watching as a bag of drugs was inserted into Sherlock's stomach,and how the enemy had sworn to their god that the boy would become a mule for them,and an utter disgrace to his masters.

Tried to forget being told that Sherlock had escaped, but was strung out on the drugs from the bag, which had begun to leak it's content,was totally insane ,and was robotically on a seek-and-destroy mission for one James Moriarty.

Tried to forget being told that Sherlock was assumed dead after a bombing that Moriarty was believed to have authorized.

Had thrown himself into battle, totally heedless of life, after that, trying to save every soldier he could, more so for the sake of their families back home. Saving as many souls as he could from the horror of knowing what it was to lose a brother...

And so ,when he was brought down by a shot to his shoulder in a horrific firefight some years later, and he lay in a coma truelly expected to die ,for months at a time, he truly did forget. When he woke up, he remembered being John Watson, Colonel Donald Watson's son. He remembered his drunken family, and most of the horrors of the war he'd endured.

But Sherlock Holmes had been utterly wiped from his memory, for how could he live to fight another day if he could recall the utterly most painful loss of his life? So, as a courtesy to him, his own psyche bleached itself of anything that was reminiscent of Sherlock.

Which is why when Mike and Mycroft conspired to arrange John's meeting with Sherlock(fully dried out from his forced drug addiction now,and under cover working for New Scotland Yard whilst he tried to pin down on the home front the remaining agents of MI5 that had aided in the Moriarty rebellion) in the lab at St. Bart's after his invalidation, he had no memory of him. Which is why, for the sake of John's own state of fragility,Sherlock (after some discussion, i.e a fervent pep talk with Molly)had opted to put on the act of the "highly functioning sociopathic genius",which was only an act because he downplayed his actual potential, some times even allowing the arrogant police officers to verbally assault him, to keep concealed his history as the greatest detective of SIS history.

All for John...all to keep him safe from the rise of the Consulting Criminal,who's face he had yet to see.

"Why?" John croaked.

"Why indeed?" Mycroft answered, suddenly. "To save your life, from a recreation of the "Sholto's Boys" murder, had he not jumped off that blasted rooftop. It was devilishly hard to fake one's death by falling from a high building, let me tell you. I'll let him be the one to explain to you how he did it."

"Did what?" Greg gasped, still mostly in the dark about all of this.

"Save my life? Fake his...death?" John croaked.

Mycroft swallowed, "My brother would NEVER hurt you intentionally, or unless he must to protect you, in a twisted sense ,such as this was. Yes, I helped him fake his death. My brother did NOT die upon landing on the sidewalk under St. Bart's. He is alive. You must go into protective custody now, as Moriarty's network is not entirely dissolved, our first problem, turning up once again as our final problem... You must go into protective custody, and ,being your sworn protector ,as the video implies, my brother has agreed to be your parole officer from now ,until the Network is utterly dissolved..."

"My...what?"

"Sherlock is ALIVE, John!If you want to see him, get up, wipe those tears off of your face, and fetch your coat! And don't dawdle!"


	5. Chapter 4: Together Again

**Chapter 4: Together Again~**

John froze.

A year ago he was watching his best friend that he didn't remember from his teens falling off the top of St. Bart's.

Today he was standing in the hallway outside of the private rehab facility he was currently living in, after being viciously tormented on yet another mission to stop James Moriarty.

John's memory had been frozen for roughly 8 years, 5 of which he was separated from Sherlock, 2 of which he lived on Baker Street with him, and 1 in which he was dead and gone forever.

Until today.

John drew a shaky breath. How did he _do _this? One eternally long year of being separated from him, one eternity of his being absent from the world...and now the only thing that separated them was a cheaply crafted wooden door.

Then he heard the lock turn,and saw it come open, the sole occupant trying to prepare his way to coming out. Well, Mycroft _ had _said he was having to use a walker now, something about how his last tormentors had used chains on his ankles that had been heated, and had burned his legs.

John drew one more shaky breath, and pushed the door open.

Sherlock flinched, and stood up straight, hand reaching towards a knife, the other hand clutching at a wadded up white-tshirt he was about to pull over his head.

For a moment they both stood transfixed, each one having startled the other equally.

And then ,in a blind rage, John swung his fist into Sherlock's jaw with the force of a charging steer.

Sherlock reeled, and clutched his jaw, coughing ,almost throwing up from the sudden pain, and dripping blood on the floor.

"THAT is for not coming clean to me!" John cried, anger suddenly dissipating at watching his bleeding.

And then in tears, he went to him, and pulled him to full standing, hair standing on end from physical contact with him, and he looked up into his eyes, wiping the blood from his lips,with the cuff of his sleeve.

"John." Sherlock whispered, a mixture of relief, and concern for his safety, being here now.

John sobbed,and threw his arms around him,and Sherlock wrapped his arms around him in return, laying his face in his hair, bleeding in it, but not aware.

"Why? Why didn't you tell me ...you were alive? Why didn't you try to remind me about all those years before Baker Street, about being there in Afghanistan with me?"

Sherlock flinched,and stood up straight, bleeding lips gaping.

"You...You remember? But...I was told...you never would?"

"Mycroft. He showed me the video you made.. right before...you took the Viper's Nest mission. Then I remembered everything, except for what you said about an "assassination" attempt on me?"

Sherlock swallowed, "The day of the "Sholto's Boys" murder, someone tried to take your life, via sending a serpent into one of the medic tents. They had planted it strategically at your hand wash station, to guarantee that you would be bitten by it. Most of the officers dismissed it as just a wandering serpent making its way in amongst us, and the news that night left them all so distraught it would be left as that, but I had reason to be suspicious ,given the events of the day, and when I investigated I found the signs... I suppose I don't have to go into details..."

John was crying shamelessly now, "I don't care if you read Taxes 2014 to me, at least I can hear your voice!"he gasped, and pressed his face into Sherlock's chest again.

Sherlock swallowed. It hurt more than any torment in the world, more than being sent into a thousand hells, to hear how he had made John grieve, -how he wept!

John leaned into him, and gasped, with a hoarse rasping sound, " Why...did you jump ,Sherlock?"

It was the question that had been hanging in the air heavier than lead shrapnel for over a year now.

Sherlock shuddered, "Mycroft...didn't tell you?"

"I was...too...I couldn't make sense of much..."

Sherlock nodded, "I'm VERY sorry, John..."

"It's...it's-I forgive you, yeah, I do...And...and it will be...ok,...if...if you tell me...why? I don't even need to know how, just...why?"

"Moriarty...had snipers trained to the three people I care most about (he failed to factor in Molly's importance).They had orders to shoot, UNLESS they saw me fall, then they were to hold their fire. One was at Baker Street for Mrs. Hudson. One trained on Lestrade. The last one was for ...uhh...for you."

John gasped another sob,and leaned more heavily into him. And then he felt him shiver, and realized his chest was bare, and saw his torment, and gave a sharp cry, and backed him up to the bed, sitting him down,and immediately switching to army medic mode, asking a billion questions about how he got the wounds, pulling out the room's first aid supplies and tending the wounds himself, never mind that he was in one of the most expensive safe houses his superiors could afford, with loads of other doctors to look after him.

Then John looked up, enraged, "WHO?! WHO _did _this to you? Who,and _why? _So I can have an excuse to follow them into hell;hunt them until they pay for it!"

"I'm currently on the case for the last piece to the Moriarty puzzle...the same man that helped Moriarty begin his career, by helping him plot his mutiny, and being his "wingman" if you will , fighting on his right hand the day of the "Sholto's Boys"murder. I am...by defintion, the Major's asylum, for only I can grant him the key to his future security,and peace of mind...It was the friends of Sebastian Moran that marked me for the devil's pick." Sherlock said, softly.

John's brows were curled, in confusion.

"They've been trying to kill me too, that's why they sent me here. They said you were my sworn protector?"

Sherlock smiled, "Yes, since always...Long before Bart's , John...They are trying to use you to get to me,...so that in the end Moriarty still wins, in the end the machine of crime he created still exists, to carry out its mission. The mission being this, to disband all governments, and initiate a reign of total anarchy, a reign of criminals, the "strong" appointed as it's "governors". Or in other words, Moriarty was like the Alexander of crime, and he willed said machine , as if it were some kind of inheritance, to his favorite accomplices. The chiefest of these being Sebastian Moran..."

"But you're the great Sherlock Holmes...And you're not gonna let them win."

Sherlock smiled, "No, of course not."

John smiled, in tears all over again. He reached up, and pulled Sherlock down into his arms once more.

"You're alive..." he chanted,weeping from relief this time, making it his sworn duty now to aid him in all his pursuits once again.


	6. Chapter 5: To Crawl Through Hell

**Chapter 5: To Crawl Through A Thousand Hells~**

It was an hour or maybe two, when John finally composed himself, and his crying stopped. Sherlock had shifted on the floor,and was holding him, like one might a child, against his chest, that was still bare.

John's fingers brushed over the fabric of the knees of Sherlock's pants, and he looked at them. They were the same as an officer in the British navy would wear.

"It's a disguise...and I have a meeting to go to in a little while. You are supposed to come with me; I just figured we would meet up there...I didn't know..."

"That I would want to come find you after your being dead for so long?"John asked, sounding almost hurt. Sherlock bowed his head, almost embarrassed.

"I never told you that I loved you ,did I? That you were like a kid brother to me,...since the first, and from the second time I met you?"

"No, no you didn't. And I might not have believed you anyway, not back then. But now...now I think...I believe you, because you must, if you are willing to forgive what I have become. I lost a brother once, myself, I don't suppose you remember Sherrinford? ,and that's probably a good thing. I don't do sentiment, but you always filled that vacuum, you understand? I uh,well I love...you as well. This mission, this..." he looked down at himself, at his scars,

"I've been trying to protect you, John."

John smiles through his tear stains. "Well...there is a lot we never said, yeah?But we will,... we will..."

"Yes..."

John stood up, and reached, and helped Sherlock stand. Then quickly he stitched the lip he busted open, and helped him slip into the rest of the naval officer uniform, finishing with the cap.

"Right. You look the part for certain."

"Oh well I'm not in the Navy, technically I enlisted with the Army,when they made me enlist into one of the services. But I've always worked for SIS, so I don't..." Sherlock laughed,at the look John gave him.

"Right, you remember now, don't you?"

"Yeah. We've got a LOT of catching up to do, mate."

"Well,it'll have to be after the meeting. And I don't know how I'm going to get down all those flights of stairs with that bloody walker!" he looked at it ,accusingly, and John smiled.

"I have an idea, but you might not like it so much?"

* * *

The officers all were standing at ease, and waiting for the consultant the Navy had hired to take down Moriarty's chiefest accomplice, who was currently playing the role of a modern day Blackbeard.

There was some quiet chatting amongst the ranks, and gossip too, as Major Sholto entered the room.

He went to the very back,and sat down, as suspicious glances were cast his way. He'd been allowed to keep his uniform, though most of the people here didn't believe he deserved it. But he had been DISCHARGED, so why was he here?

"Odd that, I'd been told he was elimnated."said one.

"Ah, maybe he's being called out on the field to atone for his sins." said another.

And just then John burst into the room, himself dressed in a dress uniform fitting his rank, hat cocked, and he was somehow carrying Sherlock ,whose hat had fallen over his eyes, like a bride.

John stopped staring awkwardly at all the officers, who were staring awkwardly at the both of them, and Sherlock's hand dangled oddly, trying to twist back and move the hat.

"Are you going to set me down?" asked Sherlock, and John swallowed, being jolted back to reality by the voice still haunting to hear.

"Oh, uhm...right." he set Sherlock on his feet, and the man reached and pulled up the wide white-topped hat, smoothing out the crisp navy blue jacket he was wearing, still not used to the officer's finery, never having to have worn it before. He looked up at the men before him,and suddenly he blanched, seeing the looks on all their faces, realizing he was actually going to have to address people.

John elbowed him gently, flinching a little at being able to touch he who had been dead for ages. Sherlock stiffened. His sociopath act, hadn't actually entirely been an act. The years of his forced drug addiction and torment BEFORE John was reunited with him, lead him to the cynicism he had towards people, when John had been reacquainted with him. He had never really been so good with people before, though before he did well enough, just copying Mycroft. Years of further torment had only worsened his cynicism. Now that he needed to, now that he was an open book before these men, their commander on this particular mission,...now he couldn't remember how to communicate with ...people.

"Chemistry..." John whispered, and Sherlock understood. He glanced sidelong at his friend, to notice him smiling broadly, eyes twinkling in the dimly lit room.

Yes...Sherlock had been a phenomenal teacher once upon a time...

He stood at a crisp attention,and saluted, and John did the same, and all the officers followed suit.

"At ease. " Sherlock commanded, and John shivered. He could _hear _him, for real, talking! Really hear him now, not just in his dreams and memories.

"Ah yes, Major Sholto! Come ,honor us with your presence!" Sherlock called to the back of the room, and the man in question felt his blood freeze, as he looked up into the eyes of a young man that he had been lead to believe was dead for far too long.

Sholto and Sherlock had always deeply understood and respected each other, if only through the relationship they shared with John. They considered it a divine privilege to be gifted with such a man, and between the two of them, they had made a secret pact,to crawl through the ashes of a thousand hells, before they would ever let John be burned. John ,of course, didn't know this. The man had an unfortunate knack for seeing but not observing.

The other officers hissed, yet still Sherlock extended a white-gloved hand. "Major?" he asked, and the older man snapped back to reality, realizing that Sherlock really WAS here in this room, breathing the air of the living again.

The Major got up, despite the many glares, and came to the foot of the podium the two men he loved like little brothers were standing on.

"Captain Watson, kindly assist the Major up the podium ,would you?"

John was threatening tears again. Leave it to Sherlock to use his theatrics for bringing a man to justice poetically! "Hello, Major..." he muttered, and extended a hand that Sholto absently took, and let John help him hobble up the rough wooden steps, in some old lounge like room of the safe house.

" Before the lot of you," Sherlock cried, voice raising an octave so that they could all hear him without a microphone," I wish to publically thank this man, before we begin with any discussion of the Sebastian Moran problem. Because without this man, we would all be in the midst of a war that Moriarty and Moran single-handedly started! Gentlemen,you may not have heard, and it is in confidence of the Secret Intelligence Services that I now inform you, that the day of the tragic incident with Sholto's new recruits, was not, in fact, a tragic incident, but a work of genius _murder..."_

Some of the more judgemental of the officers looked aghast, and Sherlock turned to face Sholto, never taking his eyes off him. Silently Sholto sent the message with his eyes:

_Thank you..._

Silently Sherlock's eyes pleaded:

_The pursuit of justice is my destiny. I am the only one of my kind._

"The day of the supposed incident, an agent of MI5, one Richard Brook, who had joined the service under a pseudonym,and was actually an Irish immigrant by the name of James Moriarty, was on the field with the other new recruits, his mission, and the mission of his personal assistant, one Sebastian Moran (whose pseudonym is yet a matter of revelation), taking him in the same general locale as that of the company. But Moriarty had been plotting a mutiny, against his masters on the home front, and against his guide through Afghani terrain. And had not the Major attempted to stop him, but sustained injuries that caused this attempt to fail, many more of your sons and daughters would lie dead in far off countries, or even on your own doorsteps, murdered in cold blood by the hand of Moriarty, and his assistants."

There was silence. They hadn't known, had never suspected that the story they had been told could be a lie.

"Yet after all of this, for the protection of the comrades he loved,against the malevolence that is the mind of the Consulting Criminal, he took the blame ,and was robbed of the honor he yet so rightly deserved. So I must say before God,and all of you, that I am utterly HONORED, to be in this man's presence, and that I am being given the mission that could grant him asylum in the twilight years of his career as a soldier of the United Kingdom."

Sherlock bowed elegantly then to the Major, and Sholto bit his lip, clenching his fist to ward off his tears.

"I thought you were dead..." he muttered.

"I was, but then, John found me." Sherlock answered , with a wink.

John swallowed, having heard this remark. So much catching up to do!

"Captain Watson, now that I have said my peace, kindly escort the Major to his seat; he could hardly be comfortable up here." Sherlock smiled, and John took the Major's arm, leaning close to Sherlock's ear.

"You could hardly be either, your knees are knocking. Shall I bring you a chair?"

"I'll be alright , John. Got a job to do..." Sherlock whispered, and John nodded.

"_We've_ got a job to do." he corrected, leading Sholto to his seat, as Sherlock began:

"Now, gentleman, it has come time to address that last of pieces to the great chess game that was Moriarty's Modus Operandi . It is time to confront our final problem. Sebastian Moran."


	7. Chapter 6: Lazarus Moves Out

**Chapter 6: Lazarus Moves Out**

**Author's Note: I have based Sherlock's case of "Lazarus Syndrome" in this story, off of the medically reported case of one Daphne Banks.**

"It was in the year 2004 ,(when the Sholto's Boys murder went on file)that I first took this mission, and it became apparent from day 1 that Moriarty had an accomplice. There were prints of boots that were of a different size than those of the Consulting Criminal, who later in life I would actually confront. His accomplice, named as Sebastian Moran by other members of the Consulting Criminal's cabinet, this being his real name, according to investigation of the private life of James Moriarty, is of a much greater stature than Moriarty was himself. Evidence at some of his murder sites suggests he has blonde hair, about the shade of Watson's, and there were also signs that it was dyed ginger at one point." Sherlock began, eyes falling on John as he ascended the podium a second time.

John's blood froze, and he felt he had been turned to stone. All of this time, grieving for Sherlock, praying for a miraculous survival, and he wasn't in the least prepared for the impossible grace that his prayer might actually be answered. No more was he prepared to hear the account of Sherlock's time away.

"I myself have never actually verbally encountered the Great Accomplice, but I have sampled a great number of his murders, being called upon to hunt him down over a year ago, after I miraculously survived leaping from the top of St. Bart's Research. There had been a plan constructed of at least 13 possible outcomes from my encounter with Moriarty on the roof, and the last of these, that I was to agree to, by order of Mycroft Holmes, only as the FINAL result, was to jump to my death on the sidewalk. Which, as is obvious by the previous statement, this became the ultimate final option, when I learned that Moriarty had given orders to fire on 3 persons of great personal value to myself, one of them being Captain Watson, should I not jump to my death, as we anticipated coerced suicide might have been part of his ploy. That should have actually been the permanent end of my involvement in this mission, although when I was to awaken later I have evidence to believe that Moran himself was the hand behind the trigger aimed for Watson. This information lead me to construct a theory of at least 10 different semi-automatic weapons of his choice...

As it is of some matter of interest to our mission, I shall at this point describe the nature of my survival. It is only by some impossible grace, and what has lead me to the final, however improbable it might seem to the scientific minds of this day, conclusion that MUST be true, (as the impossible situation of my death was reversed) that it was an act of God Himself.

I actually did not survive the fall to the sidewalk, but rather died within 5 minutes of landing, of blunt abdominal trauma.

My brother's agent-physicians attempted resuscitation for exactly 62 minutes after I was whisked from the scene, and they monitored me for 10 before I was promptly sent back inside the building to the mortuary. Where my grieving personal assistant , Molly Hooper, located me to perform my autopsy as a last favor to my brother, and found me snoring , exactly 34 hours later."

John felt like he had been plowed over with a bulldozer. Sherlock had actually been DEAD? Had actually DIED for HIM?!

"Because I had survived by apparently one of the most absurd cases of Lazarus Syndrome ever recorded, the mission was at this point renamed "Operation Lazarus" and I was discreetly removed from the country, where I made a miraculous recovery in a hospital in Copenhagen. This is where my account becomes of interest to our mission. While the cause of my clinical death was blunt abdominal trauma, judging by the way I landed, I had also struck my head and had suffered blunt head trauma, though not to any great severity, this being the most phenomenal part of my resuscitation and recovery. But head injury it was, and while I lay in the hospital in Copenhagen recovering, I was visited by a man who matches the theorized description ,based on data we have compiled from his crime scenes, of this Sebastian Moran. If we were able to prove that I, in my subconscious vulnerability, actually was visited by the man I thought I had hallucinated, then we could construct an actual image of him that would help us in our hunt for him. Normally I would not suggest such an absurd "stab-in-the -dark" sort of mission. Had it not been, that recent data compiled by my brother, tracking the man by his methods of crime, has lead us to believe he could have a safe house in Copenhagen, one utilized frequently, giving a point of tangency to my dreams."

"So, what are you proposing?" asked Lee West, and John smiled, not having seen him since before the War, and realizing that he had survived it ,and come to be here now, high in rank.

Sherlock smiled, "Insanity. I have never attempted something so radical before. I would like to propose the officers of this particular meeting arrange a meeting via British consulate, with officers of the German military to discuss the whereabouts of a fugitive. You would then suggest that we have the fugitive's name,and rank, and dimensions, and a list of 10 possible weapon choices, but we need a physical description. In which case I would be allowed to return to the scene of my hospitalization, searching for signs of frequent break in, over a year ago. And then, from there, I would begin to trace my way back in time to this supposed safe-house."

"The scene would most likely have been tampered with, in a years time?" submitted an officer.

"Which is what makes the investigation insanity. But a necessary insanity,as I have nothing left to go on. There is a reason why I saw the man during recovery, and as I have had no other such hallucinations, not even under torments by various other members of the Network, however improbable it may seem, it could be that I actually _did_ see this man, not merely hallucinated him. Which if I did, that will put us closer to him, as in his visits he called himself ,with some confidence, by the name of Sebastian Moran,and threatened my utter ruin should I try and cross swords with him."

"Why would a man who is acting as a modern day pirate position himself in a place such as Copenhagen ,Germany?"

"All the more reason to investigate the territory and come away with theory-worthy evidence, sir."

The room grew very quiet, the audience stunned. The man had just confessed to Lazarus syndrome, threat of death, and torment by the hands of Moriarty's men, and in the same breath had proposed an impossible mission in Germany to dredge up the ghost of said Great Accomplice.

Leave that to Sherlock Holmes.

The men came to a consensus and stood. " We follow you wherever you may go ,Detective Holmes." said one, and in unison they all stood at a crisp attention,and saluted.

Sherlock did the same, and so did John ,and slowly the room began to clear off.

Sherlock closed his eyes, pleading to the God that had caused his scientifically phenomenal revival, that he would actually be able to find plausible evidence on this case.

He was concentrating so hard he barely heard John say,

"You were dead for 1 day an 10 hours?"

His eyes flew open.

Oh right, he had just said all of that in front of _John Watson._

"Are you impressed?"

"You died FOR ME?!"

Sherlock turned to face John, whose jaw was clenched, lips forming a tight white line.

"Maybe we could talk about this over dinner?What not lets go change these itchy clothes though first, eh? They've given you the room adjacent with mine, in case you were wondering where you're supposed to sleep..."

John nodded softly, and swallowed.

"34 hours, that's 1 day and 10 hours...that you weren't in the world..."

Sherlock nodded, knowing that quite well.

"That's too bloody long..."

"Well,I'm here now...aren't I? Come on...let's...do something to ...switch thought processes."

He put an arm around John, and started to limp away when John remembered that he wasn't walking right, and reached and swept him off his feet.

"You're too light...This is so...bloody crazy!"

"I know..."

"You're gonna tell me everything..."

"Yes."

"Ok."

John nodded again, looking near being sick.

Sherlock leaned against him,and swallowed. Harder than being dead for 34 hours... Harder than hunting down the Network all over the world, and sometimes being capture and tortured by them, harder than this new mission to Germany, was the knowledge that he had caused his only friend pain...

"I'm sorry ,John..."he muttered, as the doctor shifted his weight a bit, and carried him away.


	8. Chapter 7: A Chance for Questions

**Chapter 7: A Chance for Questions~**

A little while later John stood in the doorway of the adjoined rooms, pulling a t-shirt over his head, folding the uniform he was wearing up. It was taking Sherlock longer to get dressed, because of his injuries.

He came into the room,right as Sherlock had finally finished stringing a belt through a pair of faded jeans that had been provided him as a disguise here.

"Why did Mycroft lie to me? He told me that you didn't die when you hit the sidewalk. That he helped you fake your death."

"Mmm? Oh, well, after I had been dead, and then miraculously turned up not, he had to make sure that everyone was convinced the funeral was still on. If Moriarty was trying to kill the lot of you on my account, we calculated it was most likely safer for me to remain dead. And that bit about me not dying when I hit the sidewalk, ... I technically died a few minutes _afterwards_ from trauma to my guts."

John watched the way the scars on Sherlock's back crinkled and shone in the dim light of their adjoined rooms, as he fumbled for a shirt ,amongst the piles of all sorts of papers and things he had scattered about his bed.

"Did it hurt?"

"What?" asked Sherlock , turning to face him now, standing up straight, a horrific laceration on his chest glinting like a sword in the light.

John almost swallowed his tongue at the sight of it,and said:" Did it hurt, when you...when you fell?"

Sherlock blinked, looking suddenly very sad.

"I...don't remember much."

"What do you remember?"

"Our last conversation...Letting go. I put my arms out; I thought if I convinced myself I was flying that I could...do it...Falling literally...asleep..."

John gasped, shaking his head, and coming into the room.

"Dead. For a day and almost a half...You really _were _dead,by the time I got to you, took your pulse, your heart really wasn't beating, and that blood all over me, it was...really yours..."

Sherlock's jaw dropped. "You...you were there...when they ...collected me?..."

"Yeah...Oh God, I still feel your blood on my hands sometimes,...as if I was the one who..."

"No, John! GOD, NO! It wasn't your fault..."

"Do you remember the night that you...the night before...when I called you a machine, because you weren't going to come check on Mrs. Hudson, and...then she wasn't actually shot and..."

"Mycroft and I had planned for a distraction to get you away from there. If I made you angry with me ,you would have all the more reason not to hurry back, and so it all went according to plan..."

John swallowed, stopping mid-stride, having been walking closer to Sherlock.

He felt like he wanted to cry, but he didn't have enough tears left. So instead he reached a hand, and traced Sherlock's scars...

"These hurt. You remember these?..."

"Yeah...they did..."

"Why did they torture you?"

"They wanted information, about Moriarty's supposed computer code, his pass key that helped him commit all his crimes with just a push of a button. About Mycroft, about Molly... About you..."

"So you were doing it for me, huh? Died for me...Died..." he shook his head, and took Sherlock by the shoulders, letting a soft, warm puff of air escape his lips.

"What was it like?"

"What?"

"Death? You were gone for quite a while...what did you see?"

Sherlock's eyes looked off into the distance,

"It was like a dream...I was in a house, really an elegant one, like nothing you've ever seen, it was made all of crystal,and had furniture that's upholstery was of crushed and sown diamonds. There was a Man there, and He had two brutal puncture wound scars on each wrist, right at the base of His palms. I asked Him where I was and He told me I was in His mind palace. He told me to sit down, and then He poured us some water in a fancy- looking glass, that when He waved His hands over them ,both turned into a really dark rosé wine. I asked Him what for, and He said He'd like to talk, to catch up with me, as if maybe we knew each other.

So, we sat, and we actually talked...and it was easy to talk to Him, despite how...how you know, I was...with people.

He wanted to know why I had chosen to make the trip to His City at such a young age. I told Him I was trying to save you. That...I was concerned you were going to be in danger without me there to protect you. He ...He laughed at me, but it wasn't like before when people thought I was a Freak , and laughed and called me names , or told me to "piss off". He was laughing at me like for once I was the silly one...and He knew more. And so then I had to deduce Him, just to feel clever again ,I guess. It was impossible to determine His age, He had the knowledge of someone far older, possibly millenia old, but He physically bore all of the criteria of an average 33 year old adult male, I mean side by side we looked exactly the same age! He was Jewish, and because of that he reminded me of my mother. In fact, I felt strange comfort in His presence, like you do when you are a little kid, and your mother shows up at school, right after you've been being exceptionally bullied all day, which it was odd for me to experience sentiment in any form, but especially with this Stranger. His sandals had clay on the toes and heels matching the exact silt of the Golan Heights region, so I determined by this, and His Israeli accent ,that He was probably a Galilean. When I looked up, He realized I had been deducing Him, and then He laughed again, and said, "Now it's My turn." and He told me every single detail of my entire life.

I asked Him Who He was, but He told me that I already knew. And then He told me that He had been watching over you your entire life, that the two of us were born for each other, one to watch over the other. I asked Him what evidence He had for such a theory, and He told me there was no way He could show it to me, but that I would have to take His word for it instead.

And then He told me that I should rest, because I had another mission. A case ,to stop Moriarty's Network. He told me that you were going to be alright, that He had upgraded your surveillance...and only then did I agree to kip on one of the rather large cloud -like fluffy couches there. The strangest thing was when ,as I lay down, He pulled a quilt over me that was woven with many different colors, and flags from all the world's nations. He told me the wine would help my stomach, and that I would probably be feeling pretty poorly when I woke up later. I thanked Him for the wine, and the place to kip, and He said that it was no problem, that any time I wanted to come back and chat, that there was a path in my mind palace I could take there. I said I would probably have to take Him up on such an offer sometime, and then I feel asleep...

And it was all darkness after that, like when you're just passed out, it felt like when I was strung out back in the days after I escaped the Viper's Nest, and was sometimes on the street doing drugs, 'cause I was hooked whether I wanted to be or not. It felt exactly like that now, 'cause I really didn't want to wake up. But then, then I heard Molly screaming, and I had to get to her, thought she was in some sort of trouble. I woke up a little while later in the back of an ambulance, taking me en route to being out of the country..."

John's jaw had dropped open wide enough for a train to pull into it.

"Wow..." he muttered, fingering Sherlock's wounds again.

"Sometimes...when I was tortured, I went to my mind palace, and would find the path the Man was talking about. I would go to Him, and ask Him to show me status updates on you. He always was able to assure me that your situation was neutral. He always coached me to stay alive, stay awake. I never did catch His name...but...when I do finally leave the mortal coil,for good this time, I would like very much to meet Him again. And thank Him for His attentiveness to your safety ; it came to the place where I trusted the Stranger from my out of body experience more than I trusted Mycroft with you..."

John laughed, "Do you think it was God?"

Sherlock blinked, contemplating that, "It's possible?"

They stood in silence for a long moment,

"You...died...for me...Sherlock."

"Yes...Yes I did. Willingly,alright? It wasn't your fault..."

John nodded, and bowed his head, "I wish you didn't have to..."

"Well, it's over now..."

"This mission isn't?"

Sherlock smiled now mysteriously, "Ever since I woke up from wherever in blazes I was...my observational skills have tripled. I think we are closer now to stopping Moriarty than we ever have been..."

John nodded again, and smiled. Then he reached behind Sherlock having found a forest green t-shirt laying on his chemistry kit, and he pulled it over his head, gently smoothing it down over the horrific scars.

"Why don't we go find some food?"

"You ought to see the kitchen in this place, John!"

"Yeah, want to give me the exclusive tour?"

Sherlock smiled, overjoyed to be with him again, after life and death had gotten in the way.

"Absolutely..."


	9. Chapter 8: The Bloodhound

**Chapter 8: The Bloodhound~**

The rain was falling softly, on the scorched ground, outside of the hospital in Copenhagen, where Sherlock had been kept after his utter miracle recovery from the Fall.

John stood there, staring, listening to the consul explain that the hospital had been nearly burned down by bandits after a certain patient (everyone understood this to be Sherlock) had been checked out.

"Indicting..." Sherlock muttered, and John turned slowly to look at him.

He had turned his face slightly to the soft white light cast by the candle of the rain, and silver-green eyes burned like orbs in the dusk. No disguises, no military uniforms. He was in a foreign country, no one would recognize the iconic long dark coat ,all black casual suit, and wispy blue scarf here. Complete with the leather gloves he wore against the breathing of the wind on cold days,here was Sherlock Holmes once again, exactly as John pictured him, whenever he had streamed through his veins,like strands of haunting music ,or captured memory, at night.

He glanced over at John, and a flicker of a smile licked at the edges of his lips, like a flame turns itself in the mirror. John tucked his hands down deep into the rain forest green slicker he was wearing, and smiled in return.

This was just like old times. Not army old times. Although that was the origin of their phenomenal friendship, that seemed like another life entirely. Technically that was two life times ago, seeing as they had been reacquainted, and Sherlock had been "murdered" again, and by some Divine Escape, had managed to evade the Reaper's sword just one more time.

Here they were again, on another case, this time impossible. They stood side by side, and a little to their left stood Major Sholto, who had elected to be their officer escort through wherever in the world they would need to go to stop Sebastian Moran, and so at last bury Jim Moriarty. And thus, escorting each other, each the sworn protector of each other (for now that John had found Sherlock again, he would pass through eternal fire before he would see him come to any further harm) all three felt, at last ,truly safe from the ever roving eye of the lust for blood and souls.

"So really ,Detective , I don't know what you plan to find, but there isn't much left." the consul finished.

"Oh, I don't plan to find anything, Mr. York. I merely intend to observe, and see what data comes from it."

His coat whisked behind him like the flicker of flames, and he seemed to emanate the shades of black lights, as he passed like the smoke wafting from the cheap cigars of working men about the sidewalks, through the crowd and to the closed off construction site. As immaterial as thought, but more vivid than the very spectrum of all color was he in that single moment, and once more John was utterly captivated ,spellbound, watching the master magician about his sport again.

"Like a bloodhound..."Sholto remarked, and John flinched, forgetting he was here.

"Yes...magnificent, isn't it?"

"I've only seen him do it once. I swear, it chills my blood."

"He only gets better the longer he lives." John stated, chest bubbling with how _good_ it felt to be able to say that. That is to say 'he lives' and the object of the statement be Sherlock.

The officer and the doctor came to a canter behind their detective, as he was fully under his own enchantment now, completely oblivious to any one and anything not his Work.

* * *

The sights, the smells, the fire. Sherlock clutched at his head, feeling queasy on a sudden, realizations dawning on him as he spotted details ,like a flash of bright light, so bright a flash as to cause him migraines.

"If you are to remove the hundreds upon hundreds of tramping boot prints all over my crime scene since the very day that this was turned into a construction site, if you were to sweep up all the cigarettes and spilled coffee, and that permanent stain of pickled bologna by the fire hydrant, one might see a single hair-line crack in the pavement, and the jagged line in which it moves. It's too wide to be a heat crack, but too thin to have been made by debris from the damaged building. The seams of the crack are stained with carbon dust, so the smoke and tar settle in the crack after the fire, the crack was made before. Made by what?"

John craned his neck to see, and finally made out the outline of the almost imperceptible crack Sherlock had noted. He felt his head spinning like a carousel on jet fuel. HOW was Sherlock pulling this off?

Sherlock spun quickly noticing something, "When you reach the extreme end of this crack, you discover it is not just a random erosion of the pavement, but a trail,the trail of a gas can that had a piece of steel still hanging off the bottom of it; there are small chips of steel rust in parts of the seam ,weighted down by mud and rain, and almost covered by cigarette butts, but a few pieces were actually saved from exposure this way, and still retain their silvery color. So obviously a piece of steel, yes. How do I know it's a gas can? The blotches. There are little speckles on the pavement, burned there extra dark by the heat of the fire, as if the flames that licked up there were extinguished extra quickly, finding a fuel source to feed off of at an accelerated rate, therefore giving them an accelerated end. The pavement is freckled forever after, and shows us the diameter of the can. It was huge, an oil drum really, being drug between two men."

Sholto and John were so enthralled by the account, that they didn't notice how close they had come to each other, and stumbled into each other. As if not noticing, Sherlock followed the trail to the back of the burned out building.

"Had to have been fairly late at night,then, when they anointed the scene. Would have been extremely obvious to see not two but three men in broad day, two dragging a large drum of flammable liquid, and the third dragging a tripod" Sherlock indicated other markings, almost like the ground had been punctured with a needle, in exactly the right placements for a tripod's dimension. "To the backside of a general hospital. The third party, the marksman, was a trained gunman, an assassin-sniper. His pace was soft, steady, a hunter's gate, not quick and jittery like the motions of a novice killer."

"How in God's name could you know that?" John asked, shaking his head, in a daze. It was GOOD to be listening to Sherlock's deductions again.

"The frequency of the markings. They are few and far between, and the angles that they are at,suggesting the composure of his upper body, as his hand loosely carried the tripod beside it, casually even. We only have the markings, because he had turned to bicker with his accomplices, and so heedless, his tripod scrapes the ground, almost pierces the pavement, so he may have even leaned on it from time to time as he paused to give them a good ear full. So their mission then was of critical importance, not just a random murder..."

"AHA!" he cries, as they reach what was once the hospital's back lot.

"Not a random murder, an assassination. A shot to be disguised in the sound of fire alarms by the hospital staff, the fire being strategically lit in the air conditioning unit, which as you clearly observe, is where they left the can."

He pointed , and sure enough, there was a now rusted out can laying by an old air conditioning systems box, almost hidden now by weeds, and broken pavement.

"The room 3rd to the left top floor, was mine. In my last "hallucination" of the man that may have been Sebastian Moran, he had threatened to "kill me soft and silent, where I lay." You see the exact position of these final tripod scrapings? The scrapings only being there, because the device was clearly already well worn out at that time? If my calculations are correct, which usually they are, this exact placement, would have put the direction of his shot to aiming directly for the fine point directly between my eyes." he pushed his finger there for emphasis.

"This fire was lit a week after I was checked out. So ,this mysterious marksman, arrogant enough to plan such a shot, such an awkward angle? from a hospital parking lot, where even at night one might be observed?, finds that his target has already left the country, and so to cover whatever evidence may remain of himself, and as a warning to any one who assists Sherlock Holmes, he has his two stooges light the place on fire." Sherlock smiles,

"However ,he wasn't able to totally erase himself. The metal sidings of these windows didn't burn. Some of them didn't even stain by the fire, as the firefighters were able to extinguish the blaze before it reached my floor."

Sherlock takes off, not heeding a nervous cry from John, and begins to climb the window lattice, deducing the exact path Moran would have taken to his room, doing the same.

"One night , I remember he cursed me for being such a trouble, had gashed open his hand on a loose screw of these panes..."Sherlock said over his shoulder, to John who had followed him up. Sholto stood staring dumbstruck up from the ground.

John laughed, and cackled, "Oh my God..." when Sherlock found a piece of metal strip that had bloodstains on it, cut that piece away with an extremely sharp knife gifted him by the service, and slipped the chunk of metal in an evidence bag.

"And now not only do we have the beginnings of a lead to his safe house,( as from here we just follow the breadcrumb trail)we also have a sample of his DNA, and so we can pretty much just slip it into a forensics computer, and *wip!* we have every detail there is to know about Sebastian Moran at our fingertips. Why, we might even be chatting with him on Twitter before the week is out."

John was laughing breathless..."Sherlock..." he said, smiling broadly. "That was absolutely amazing...And you yourself said this mission was insane!"

"Well, it really isn't as easy as I make it look." Sherlock curled a brow, as if that should be obvious, and the two of them carefully climbed the window panes back to the ground.

"I believe we have a result!" Sherlock said in a higher pitched tone, waving the bag victoriously for Sholto to see.

The Major blinked like a deer in a bolt of lightning...

"That was...amazing..." he muttered to John, who was shaking his head still...

Oh God, it was so good to have Sherlock back...


	10. Chapter 9: Loki's Gauntlet

**Chapter 9: Loki's Gauntlet~**

That evening the three of them crowded in a dark room of the consulate, as Mr. York logged into a forensics computer kept on hand for whenever such needs as this arose.

"This the man of your dreams then, Holmes?" asked York, pulling up the photograph that came up as a match for the DNA sample.

"The very one that haunted me..." said Sherlock, with a strangely delighted smile on his face.

"You look happy to see him." John laughed, nudging Sherlock with his elbow. Sherlock turned to face him.

"Well now that we have a face for our Mysterious Marksman, the Game can truly be afoot. "

"Which puts us all that much closer to justice, and to finally going home." Sholto piped up, leaning heavily on his cane.

Sherlock and John exchanged surprised glances. The prospect of home had not registered to Sherlock in a life-long time.

"This guy's record is practically spot-free ,Holmes. Says they got his DNA sample from a spit ball...when he robbed a candy shoppe?"

"That's right, York, his records almost spotless because he's never been caught unless he intended to be. Like right now."

They all looked at him, astounded, and Sherlock folded his hands.

"Well, of course, you see what is going on. A master assassin would not have failed to kill me, if he so chose, certainly not in such a vulnerable state as I was. He clearly meant for us to find him, eventually. So if he meant for us to find him, and he is a ruthless master killer with an almost clean criminal record, then we can conclude the safe-house here in Copenhagen we are looking for is probably a trap. Trap for who? Trap for me?...No..,he has had PLENTY of opportunities to do that in the last year...However he knew...he _knew _that the Major and John were going to be brought in for this mission. He thought that I would be just arrogant enough to miss that bit; but I am a broken man. A dead man, as it were. You cannot kill a dead man. So, obviously the trap is for you both. Why? To clean up his tracks. Someone wants him to atone for his sin, those many years ago. Someone wants vengeance for the "Sholto's Boys" murder. Our Sebastian Moran is a fly in the trap, and we are the hunters this time. Careful if you trap a fly, it may prove to be a tiger."

John swallowed. He did not like to hear Sherlock refer to himself as "broken" and "dead".

"Who? Who could be calling him out on that?"

Sherlock swallowed, "We might have to make like a spider, and walk into the Web."

"So, you're saying the only way to solve this is to walk into the trap?" asked Sholto.

"That, unfortunately, is exactly what I'm saying."

"How do we even know where the trap is?"asked John, feeling dizzy.

"I already do."

"You what?" Sholto and John asked simultaneously.

"The two men, his accomplices. I ,of course, had to solve who they were before I could get some idea of his communications in this city, thus leading me to his bolt-hole, right? Well, I was able to deduce from their methods what and who they are. They are obviously master-arsonists, that is written in the fact they could guarantee the burning of such a large building, with one old drum of oil, half of which they splashed all over the pavement, leaving tell-tale signs in stains of fire, such as footprints, which gives shoe sizes, thus giving me the ability to deduce their dimensions. They were of the exact dimensions, exact to the nth, thus very likely making them biological brothers-identical or mirror image at least twins. Twin brother master arsonists in Copenhagen? That narrowed it down the search quite a bit, eh?I just needed to search out their records. .."

He turns to another computer, and types in the search engine, "Copenhagen, arsonist."

"Cases of one's caught, incarcerated, I had to delete those, a master arsonist, one that would be of high enough degree to even be considered for hire by the Great Accomplice,would not have allowed themselves to be caught, or imprisoned. So, I looked under cases here appears the names, "Johann and Maurice Fiandt" twins, their dimensions, and descriptions given. Wanted for major cases, such as setting fire to an entire bank vault of counterfeit money...most likely to sever ties for a boss with another crime lord that had double crossed them." Sherlock smiled broadly, wondering if the other two were catching on yet.

" So, there is a pretty steep network of counterfeiters here." John ventured.

"Sebastian Moran would only position himself on the winning side. His bolt hole would be with the bosses that have the upper hand in their Under World society. And thankfully, (otherwise this would have been a bit more time consuming) I have already encountered who they are, in one of my last times in Northern Europe." He typed a fancy number code into the system, and up came the title"Loki's Gauntlet"

John's eyes grew wide. "So, who are they?"

"A creed of criminal masterminds, mostly comprised of master arsonists. I was their guest once in Scandinavia..."

"Guest?" John felt his blood go cold.

"Well, when I say guest, I mean more or less that I was made a sport of at one of their "business meetings"and that is when I received the burn scars on my forearms, whilst I escaped with a stolen key that lead me closer to one of the heads of Moriarty's Network in Stockholm."

John grabbed Sherlock's arms, and rolled the sleeves up..."How?"

"Superheated iron gauntlets, hence the name of their organization; it's their favorite form of torture. I escaped their trap, but I was a bit out of my head from carbon monoxide poisoning, and had another mission, so I was forced to let them slide under the radar for a while, although I did inform Mycroft of them. The fact that they are on the move now and have branched out as far as Copenhagen, and that they are probably working with Sebastian Moran is a very good reason to resume investigating them, wouldn't you say?"

John was choking on the thought of Sherlock being put in superheated iron gauntlets...but he swallowed his own emotions, and put on his soldier's face. Bust up these blokes, and he was a step closer to getting Sherlock home, where he could force him to rest his injuries for a proper length of time!

"Yeah, ok, so you're saying we walk right back into their trap? You could...really be hurt this time, Sherlock!"

"A necessary risk for the cause of justice. That and basically they're begging me to come and play, arsonists such as they are, the hospital should have burned me to a fine crisp a year ago!"

Sherlock's eyes were pleading, and John felt sickened at the thought, because he'd seen this look on his face before, when he was about to do something incredibly risky to catch the bad guys.

"And this time you have the military behind you..." Sholto said suddenly, and then John remembered and felt suddenly reassured. "And as I have said I am no advocate for collateral damage. By God, I won't stand idly by and watch another set of young lives come to ruin, NOT ON MY WATCH!"

"See then, John, you have fretted yourself for nothing." Sherlock laughed, and John drew a heavy breath.

"Never for nought are Doctor Watson's worries, Sherlock, don't forget that."Sholto corrected before John had to.

"You STILL haven't said where you were going?!" Mr. York interrupted, taking a rather loud bite out of an apple.

Sherlock's eyes grew wide ,as he saw the other side of it. "Mr. York...are you experiencing any flu like symptoms?" he asked casually, shining a pocket light into his eyes.

"What, why?"

John felt his breath catch as boldly on the other side of the apple they read scratched in razor "IOU".

Sherlock swallowed, "The graveyard." he answered, taking the apple, and bidding the others step back, whilst he examined it.

"Why the graveyard?" asked Mr. York ,and then blanched when Sherlock took a cigarette lighter to the apple, and it suddenly started to burn a dark green.

"Because foot runners for the Gauntlet are almost chiefly female; called "Valkyries" and they bolt up in graveyards...Now, if you'll excuse me, I have business I must attend to. Oh, and I wouldn't recommend having any apples for while." Sherlock replied, blowing the apple's flame out like one might birthday candles, and setting the roasted core back on York's desk.

York about clotheslined John with a spluttering series of questions that sounded like, "Wazzat? Amma gonna die?"

John took Mr. York aside very patiently answering his questions(this is an example of why John was considered a saint by all who knew him) .

Sholto watched, almost breathless, as Sherlock turned up his collar, and walked away.

"Brilliant..." he muttered to himself, with a smile. John was suddenly at his elbow.

"Sorry, I had to convince him he wasn't going to die of ,what he affectionately called, "Snow White Disease"..."

They both stood watching Sherlock rushing off to the next result.

"He is...amazing...yeah?" John asked, and Sholto grunted agreement...

"I'm worried about him..."

"I'm not." said the Major.

"Really, why not?"

"He's got you and me watching out for him, and we'll never let him Fall again, now will we?"

John felt himself tearing up (God, he had been crying a lot as of late!)

"No we won't."


	11. Chapter 10: Breaking the Ice

**Chapter 10: Breaking the Ice~**

John's chest beat against the ground like a hammer on a drum, and he felt he was digging his grave with his heart. Sherlock lay beside him, propped up more on his elbows, collar pulled up mysteriously about his neck, pearing through the smoke of the graveyard. On his other side was Major Sholto, grimacing from the pain of crouching thus, to his war-battered body.

Away on top of an old vault tomb, there was a fire being lit in the deepest hours of the night, when the rest of Germany was asleep, and die Polizei were off breaking up another domestic fight, or doing another drugs bust, or otherwise concerning themselves with crime that could be understood by their minds. Never once venturing into the Darkness that was the world of Sherlock Holmes, or the Realms of Crime he knew quite well.

Rock music began to play eerily as the light flickered off the tombs. In a shrill voice one of the party began to sing "99 Luftballoons" and one could hear wine-glasses clinking, as shadows began to break dance, projected across the side of the tomb.

"So those are the Valkyrie..." John murmured into Sherlock's ear. He turned to look at him, their noses almost touching in the dark, and there was a gleaming in his silver-green eyes not only to be blamed on the fire's glare.

"Not like you heard in story books, eh?"

Sholto shifted uneasily, whilst John just stared at Sherlock, trying to read his expression, to figure out what he was about to do, trying to beg him with his eyes, since he had no words to say it, not to do anything stupid.

"So ,what's the plan?" Sholto asked, and John swallowed, sensing that there wasn't one.

"Plans are for soldiers. You two are soldiers, so that's your department. Escape route or something. Detectives are supposed to investigate, and so that is what I am here to do." Sherlock whispered, leaping to his feet.

"HALLO, JAH, DU! WO SEID DIE FIANDT BRUDERIN?" he shouted in German.

John groaned, "Oh my God..." and Sholto inched closer...

"Does he usually?-"

"Oh ,yes, almost always..."

"So, what are we to do then?"

"I believe you're first in command, Major."

John felt his heart twist at the look in Sholto's eyes, a look that said he no longer believed himself worthy of command.

"You trust me?"

"With my life, sir."

The Major nodded, " I'm not as mobile as you are. I stay here, and keep a watch for him, and act as a diversion should whatever the blazes he's doing go wrong. And you scout the parameter."

For good measure John saluted his former commanding officer, and got to his feet slowly, with a deep shaky sigh. He glanced fretfully up at Sherlock,hearing faintly what was being said:

"Was mogst du?" growled one of the Valkyrie, taking a long puff from a cigarette.

"Sprichts du English?"

"Yes...doesn't most everybody?" the Valkyrie answered.

"Think the world would run more smoothly if they did, yeah. Now, WHERE are the Fiandt Brothers?" Sherlock is now surrounded by 15 Valkyrie, their heads shaved completely bald, with each a red hand tattooed on the back.

"Why do you want to know?" barked the one he'd first spoken to.

Sherlock laughed, "They owe me money."

The women laughed..."Oh, honey, they owe everyone money!" giggled the first.

"You won't be seeing that money again!" laughed another one.

Sherlock pulled a cigarette out of the front of his coat. John growled inwardly wanting to go snatch it from him, and beat him in the head for having it in the first place.

"Do you AT LEAST have a light?"

"DUH!" growled one of them, only a teenager, and pulled up a propane torch. Sherlock laughed, and held the cigarette out ,and let her burn the end of it...

"Ach! Don't burn the whole thing before I can smoke it!" he gently admonished, pulling the cigarette away from the flame, and flicking it of excess sparks, before taking a long, dizzying pull off of it that made John want to beat him senseless.

Leave it to Sherlock Holmes to strike up chatting over cigarettes with the elite of Germany's Underworld. Rolling his eyes, and no longer (extremely) worried, John went to carry out the Major's orders.

"So, just give me a hint. Did they BURN my money...Don't lie..." Sherlock guessed, in an almost joking/ deadly serious tone.

"Baby, we burn EVERYTHING." answered the first one he'd spoken to.

Sherlock nodded, and blew a ring with the cigarette. The teen's eyes widened at that..."I want to learn how to do that..." she muttered, clapping girlishly.

"Like coffins?"

"Oh that (stream of colorful words) had it coming. We didn't have the pleasure of killing him, so we'll just do it like this. "

"Poor sod..." Sherlock said, clicking his tongue, clearly (to John's increasing irritation) enjoying the cigarette.

"Out of curiosity, what did he do ,exactly? So I can make sure not to make that mistake."

"Doubled-crossed the Great Accomplice. This is what happens to anybody who does that." the first one Sherlock had spoken to said, beaming.

Sherlock nodded, " So that's who you work for now, eh? So my money went for a good cause, then? "

" Your money's up in smoke...Along with the Fiandts."

"Oh?"

"They're dead." the teen said bluntly,and Sherlock pretended to be astonished.

"DEAD? Oh my God...How in blazes (puns...) did that happen?"

"Once the Great Accomplice is done using you, he simply discards you." answered the leader, she who first had spoken.

Sherlock shook his head..."Hmm...couldn't he have used them a little longer? Till I got my 500 quid back, anyhow?" he laughed, almost jeeringly.

It frightened John sometimes how well Sherlock could play the part of the criminal.

"Well, he only needed them to get to Sherlock Holmes..."the teen shrugged. "Once he got a bead on Sherlock Holmes, he didn't need 'em anymore, so he smoked 'em."

"Yeah, what bridge did you just crawl out from under? That happened like a year ago." said another one off to the left somewhere.

"Funny you should mention Sherlock Holmes... I've been looking for him for over a year...Don't tell me he's dead too." Sherlock shrugged, folding his arms.

"What do you want with a pig like him? " asked the leader, almost astonished.

Sherlock looked at the sky, and sighed..." He ALSO owes me money."

There was laughter then.

"You could get a job, WORK for your money you (stream of colorful words)."

"Mmm...good point, but chasing after thugs is so much more fun. Never get bored..."

"Seriously?"

"Haters are always going to hate." Sherlock said, pretending to pout.

"You're obsessed."

"I figure if I know what they're about, I'm less likely to be the next one "smoked". Protection loans...money you borrow out for your protection, and then get back when the threat is neutralized...Seemed like a clever idea before they let Moran out of his cage. So has he snuffed Holmes too? Am I wasting my time here?"

"You're an idiot, and clearly unsuccessful. Holmes was out of here the day before the Fiandts torched that general hospital a few blocks down. Only torched it to prick his interest again, sort of an unofficial invite to the party. The Boss was hoping he'd bring his little friend, oh, and the Major along..."

"First I've heard of any friend or any Major?"

"You've obviously been stoned for the last 10 years..."

"Finally ,truth!"

A bout of laughter from everyone.

"Seriously, everybody who's anybody knows about Sholto's Boys. That was the greatest thing Moriarty and Moran ever pulled off. It would have been really good if he had bagged Sholto and that little quivering Barbie doll that played doctor, though. That would have broken Sherlock Holmes, and with nothing else to live for ; he would have come on over to our side. You know him, I'm assuming."

"Quite well."

"Well you know he can't cope with a second of boredom, then...But yeah that was the plan. Take away all the distractions, make Sherlock Holmes one of us. They need him to get to the Ice Man..."

"Ice Man?"

"OH MY GOD, YOU ARE SO STUPID!"

"Stoned...Been stoned...Don't judge...I'm just a glorified gambler/criminal cash express, how I am I supposed to know all this rubbish? You'd think I were being tested!"

"The ICE MAN ,stupid! Holmes' big brother, who is basically the god of the British government. I thought you said you knew Sherlock Holmes? He's raving mad over his older brother, despite their girly little feud. He'd just assume take a bullet for him than let us play with him...But yeah,having baby brother on our side would totally break him. A broken Ice Man is a broken England. Cut off the head first, and then fry up the tail."

"Mmm...you make it sound like buttered lobster. You're talking about Mycroft Holmes? Yeah, I met him once. Reminded me of a rooster, never gave him two extra thoughts...Wouldn't call him a god..."

"Don't underestimate the Ice Man. Without him MI5 and MI6 would cave. They're pretty close to caving anyway, you know. But with Ice Man bought off, there won't be anything to stop us from crashing the system. Got the whole thing planned out already. Moriarty's last glorious Crown Jewel Heist was just dress rehearsal..."

"Sounds glamorous."

"We're even gonna have fireworks. Parliament will be the show stopper."

"I'll be watching from my window. Oh, tell the boss to come see Reese if he needs another sponsor."

Sherlock flicked the cigarette, and it fizzled out against a grave stone.

"Clever Guy Fawkes ,that." he said, pointing to the tomb-top fire . " Might not want the police to catch wind of it though?"

And with that he turned on his heel, whistling ,and walked out of the graveyard.

A few minutes later Sholto and John joined him. Sherlock was whistling, and had called the emergency number, letting them track the number, occasionally gasping and croaking and muttering a "Help, help, help..." into his mobile's receiver...

Sirens came shrieking up, and casually Sherlock said,

"I think we're actually getting somewhere at last..."

John looked back at the chaos, going through all that just happened in his mind with a shudder, and then he punched Sherlock in the gut.

"Euugh...!"

"I want the rest of them!" John hissed, holding out an upturned palm, and Sherlock grudgingly surrendered the rest of a pack of cigarettes.

Sholto shook his head..." You'd make a brilliant villain..." he said, almost with an edge of concern.

"Are either of you hungry? Oh, and I suppose I should call Mycroft, forewarn him that he's about to be murdered..."

"He is?" the other two asked, astonished.

"Well, of course he is...Once the Boss uses you, he discards you ,didn't you hear them?"


	12. Chapter 11: Mycroft's Vigil

**Chapter 11: Mycroft's Vigil~**

A while later they were gathered at a _strandhaus_ café, and Sherlock was leaning against a palm tree, fancy blackberry pressed against his ear, the sand being blown up into his face by a troubled wind.

John drew a long sip off the beer he had ordered, staring at him with a renewed sense of wonder. He was ALIVE. It was still utterly impossible.

John took in Sherlock's entire shape, cataloguing every detail, in a way the man himself might do. Thinner than the man he had lived with, which had already been almost wiry thin.

Darker too, if that were possible. He seemed to emanate darkness, like a jet stone set on display in a film development room. All of the images engraved on his soul, from the horrors of war, and his own Lazarus experience, being brought out of his countenance, as if by some photosynthesizing agent in the harvest moon now stage-light bright above them.

Dark and grim, the fine cheek bones almost set like stone by his taught expression. His brow crinkled as faintly as the rustle in a well studied page, always some trouble on his genius mind.

Alive from the dead. Having died to save John's life. The young doctor puzzled this, over and over and over till it almost made him nauseous. He knew Sherlock had loved him before...But to such an end as the Reichenbach Fall?

Suddenly a voice broke like static into the saddest song one has ever heard, through John's thoughts.

"You might as well discontinue with the fruitless attempt at contacting me , brother mine. I have destroyed all mobile contact in anticipation of your news..." said Mycroft ,stepping into the neon purple and alarming neon pink lights of the café.

Sherlock looked up, and pocketed the mobile phone.

"Mycroft..."

"Hello, Sherlock..."said the elder Holmes son, and the two stared at each other for a moment separated into fragments of infinity.

Then Mycroft closed that ever widening chasm of disagreement and death that had opened between him and his little brother too long ago with two great strides and a cocooning embrace. John 's jaw dropped, so noticeable the surprise on his face, that Sholto look up from his Toast Hawaii with a look of bafflement.

Sherlock ,to John's greater astonishment, returned the fervent embrace, pressing his face in his elder brother's shoulder, and taking a deep and relaxing breath.

"If you are here, then you have already intercepted the plot to use you as a pawn to corrupt SIS?" Sherlock muttered, voice muffled by Mycroft's neatly folded collar.

"No, actually you did that for me."

"How so, I hadn't even the chance to warn you that you are on the verge of being murdered?"

"Well, actually I have maximized surveillance on you. Your encounter with the Valkyrie was recorded. The Services are tipped off now. You are probably a good three quarters of the way to solving yet another international crime spree, in fact I think you have only left to catch a tuna?"

"By this I suppose you mean Moran, who has upgraded from arson to piracy?"

The whole time this conversation went on the brothers didn't break their embrace. John was utterly baffled, shaking his head.

"One last goldfish in a sea full of sharks ,Sherlock...Or a barracuda."

"Sorry, what?" asked John, and at last the brothers broke their fond embrace, and Sherlock gestured with his upturned palm.

"Mycroft, you remember the Major. And ,of course, you know John."

"Hello." Mycroft said with one of his cheeky smiles that always confused John as to whether he were actually glad to see you, or plotting your demise.

"When you go talking fish it's all kipper to me." Sholto said, a brow twisting almost imperceptibly on his stern face, as he took another huge bite of his ham swiss and pineapple sandwich.

"First off, what happened to you two's girly feud? I thought you hated each other?"John asked, gaping.

Mycroft laughed bitterly, "Death has a way of settling scores. That one incident in which my brother's life was out of my hands was enough to humble us both, and so our war has ended. But as for hatred, oh just because we disagreed never meant we hated each other. I have always loved my brother, from his first breath to his last, and I will love him until one of us leaves the earth for a lasting time..."

"The feeling is mutual we take it?"Sholto asked curiously, and Sherlock looked puzzled.

"Yes?" he answered, as if this was obvious. John inwardly smiled.

"Well, we haven't found Moran's bolt hole yet, so we can't leave Denmark to go chasing pirates now can we?" Sholto piped up, loudly slurping from a soda.

"Well,actually that's very simple now that we've spoken with the Valkyrie."

"It is?"the Major and John asked in unison, and Mycroft chuckled, already seeing where Sherlock was going.

"So you did pick up on the leader's dress size, I take it?" he asked, and Sherlock smiled, having a chance to show off his deductive skills to the one who taught them to him in the first place.

"The party they were having in the graveyard, whilst burning some unfortunate sod's casket? (which ,by the way, is one of the chiefest of criminal offenses...) They were wearing party dresses, rouge and alarming lipstick shades,Chanel 5 basically marinating them, and had their hair done up beauty queen style, really tall on the top ? You see but you do not observe...It was a victory celebration for them , a formal celebration of the end of the man in the casket. Whilst I was chatting with the leader, I happened to read the name on the tomb. Horatio Milverton. The man was a notorious gang lord ,originally from the UK, that had fled to Germany circa 1979, after a Ponzi scheme of his initiation went horrifically wrong. And so he came more northward and set up shop here ,in the capital of Denmark proper, the world's "happiest" little country,and became the first of men to experiment in the art of laundering from slot machines...A complicated practice of a Ponzi scheme operating out of at least 5 of the greater casinos here in Denmark, and 10 in Germany. The most remote of these, the one of Milverton's ownership, the Music Box, is where the Valkyrie were originally forced hires of unsavory business. Perhaps the only gracious thing Sebastian Moran was ever responsible for was their liberation, but he set them on a flaming path of destruction thus. The Music Box was Moran's bolt hole then, because he was being fostered by the Fiandt brothers,who actually were from Berlin, residing in Copenhagen on leave of absence, a long holiday as it were,from more notable crimes such as setting blaze to a favorite opera house in Berlin when they were teenagers..."

"Wait a minute, how do you know for certain the Music Box is the bolthole?" John asked, confused.

"Because Milverton is the one that hired the Fiandt brothers to complete many acts of arson throughout the German-Danish block,to clean the road for his enterprise, and the Music Box was the personal let-out-for-rent the brothers used for any of their clients." Mycroft added. John nodded, thinking that he understood more clearly now.

Sherlock smiled, " I have set a trap for Moran now, to give away his current location, and the reason for his German-Danish holiday...Did you catch on to that?" he asked Mycroft, who was beaming, giddy as a schoolboy let in on a secret of great mischief. John shook his head, eager for them to explain everything. Sholto leaned forward.

"By assuming the identity of Reese Weatherford, the Consulting Gambler, and Milverton's personal rival? Yes...I thought that was very clever on your part, brother mine." Mycroft cleared his throat,and turned to the others,

"Reese Weatherford was found hanged in his closet on the morning of June 7, 2006. That would have been 2 years after the Viper's Nest problem, so you gentlemen wouldn't recall it, but Sherlock had just successfully completed rehabilitation when I put him on the case. It appeared as suicide, but Weatherford had no motive; he was reported to be in his golden age, actually. Sherlock investigated the scene, and determined that it was rather in fact an elaborate homicide by strangulation, the victim suspended thus to make it appear as suicide. The murder we linked back to Moriarty's circle, but we were yet in the dark as to what Weatherford's involvement was with them, and since we had solved his case, we let the file be left as it was, until opportunity to get justice for this otherwise unjust man arose. Apparently it has arisen today, although it is still a mystery to me as to how you at last linked the Weatherford Hanging to Sebastian Moran, Sherlock?"

"Oh ,child's play really Mycroft, you see that well enough. I simply needed more variables to solve for x, our X-Killer, as I call that kind. Now that I have more data for Moran, I simply pulled up the file from where I've stored it in my mind. And now, assuming the identity of a man murdered roughly 8 years ago, referring his killer to his services? I am calling Moran out on a parley, and sooner than later we will at last converse, and come to the bottom of the Master's final problem."

"How do you know they will refer you?" asked Sholto.

Sherlock's phone rang, and he put it on speaker then, before answering it,

"Because they must report their every waking thought to the Boss...and because I know my enemy," he said with a dark laugh, pressing the phone to his ear...


	13. Chapter 12: Speak With the Devil

**Chapter 12: Speak With the Devil~**

"Sherlock Holmes, I presume. " says a voice, with practiced tone.

"Come,Sebastian, I would think the heir to the Throne would be well above presumption."

"Very well, who else could you be?"

"Good, now we know each other...So,let's just skip to business." Sherlock said, leaning against the palm again, a smile of dark delight on his face.

John was panting, nervous now, imagining that a conversation like this had happened with Moriarty , and lead up to the Fall. Guessing correctly ,as we know...

"We need no introduction, it appears." Sebastian chuckled, almost cordially over his end.

"I chatted with your lady friends last night..." Sherlock said, skipping to the point.

"I know that."

"Well, I believe they ,at least,need some introduction. I know that you are sworn to Loki's creed. As are your lady friends, whom you rescued from Milverton's brothel, and whom you swore to the creed yourself. What I am confused about is why some of them were allowed to keep their hair,and a some 15 were shaven bald, with the red hand tattooed on the back of their skulls?"

"Well that's easy ,Holmes. The red hand is the symbol of bloodshed amongst the creed. They are only allowed to keep their womanly locks, until they have killed a man in a manly way. Then they become my apprentices, and I shave them, and I brand them, and they become slaves to the Blood Trade."

"Blood Trade?"

"Haven't you heard? Murder is a business in this end of the world..."

"Murder is a work of art, a prime evil art, but nevertheless a form of creativity. Anyone who would mass-market art is cheap, and frankly boring."

"Art is a poor business, you know that. I need other ways to eat, so what is the harm in doing business in the field I love? And murder is rich ,Sherlock...filthy rich..."

"You are a sorry excuse for an Heir. You've sold your life's ambition for profit, you are no more than a whore to the bosses."

Mycroft was mouthing , hard enough that maybe it was supersonic screaming: "HOW MANY TIMES MUST I TELL YOU ,DO NOT OFFEND THE ENEMY?!"

Sherlock sneered at him, and kept on talking, "And the most tragic part of the whole thing is how _good_ you are at your wicked art. Sholto's Boys? That was masterpiece. Reese Weatherford? That was more like tick tack toe...What ARE you doing with yourself, Sebastian?"

" Are you interested in joining me ,Sherlock?"

" When Hell freezes solid. No, I'm interested as to your motive. First off, why Denmark? Doesn't seem like the ideal location for a pirate in the renaissance of the trade, to chilly this end, I was thinking the South Seas were more of the romantic and more remote of hide aways for the King of the Beasts?"

"Well, you know nothing of sentiment,though, do you? Denmark is my home. It is where my brethren are. It is where my sisters gather, at the grave of Milverton, who finally paid his penance to me in full."

"Mmmm...you killed him?"

"Shouldn't the Greatest Detective of All Time be above presumption?"

"Yes, thank you. I do not presume. You killed him. Enjoyed it, savored his every dying breath. Gave him to your whores, and they did what they did best. Was just like Guy Fawkes day, I don't know what the police did about it..."

"Ah, right ,you meddled...As always...This next round should be amusing, my nymph..."

"You are the Chief Executive now of a massive criminal enterprise. The Madame of the brothels of selling criminal genius to the criminal machine...There will be no amusement, nor Game of cloak and dagger, nor skillful duel between you and I. I am not a whore, like you, because my cause is pure from the outset, the marriage to my Work, is wed to justice itself, and is thus undefiled. Unless you reform, and play the music according to the written stanza, then there will be no glory in the end of your career. No legend for you;you're only the lackey in the end..."

"Now I see you through. Not so subtle, are you Holmes, honest to a vault, forever the Virgin! But in the end I am Hamlet the Prince of Denmark, and you are no more than our wretched ghost!"

"A plain answer ,Moran. I only deal in facts and science, leave Shakespeare in the theatre. I have figured you out...you have been called to atone for your sin against Sholto, and you have come to clean the blood off of your hands, to bury John Watson,and Sholto himself, and drive me mad as the Hatter, and make Mycroft Holmes the whore to your Machine. Your plan is brute, a Viking conquest in an age of reason. Where is the art in this, sweet prince?"

"Proof that you are a machine, you cannot see the beauty of the natural world. Dear little Sherlock, my nymph, my Midsummer's Night dreamer! By wanting to prove everything clever, you have, once again, made it all too easy! The brutality of my plan is what makes it art. The glorious demise I plan for you...to destroy you piece by piece,and so have my clear revenge! The one that called me to atone for my sin against Sholto's boys was _you, _silly child! Oh sweet Sherlock, so lost you are. Gone so softly into my dark night, tangled in my Web unbeknownst, and become my own Macbeth! Pure poetry ,Sherlock!

Sherlock nodded, "Ah, so this is an elaborate vendetta! All the details of which, are meant for your own vindication. So the death of Milverton is to guarantee the involvement of your Valkyrie, the good villain needs his audience, who better than a whole passel of damsels in distress? The burning of the hospital, the visits in the night, the murder of Weatherford...all insurance that you could lure me in again. Lure in everything and everyone I love...to make me die beyond the body, and burn beyond my soul. To kill my mind, and all my legacy die with me."

"Oh bless you Sherlock! You are more beautiful than you have any idea! The fault in our stars it seems is that our brilliance needed an audience. And that audience must suffer. I needed virgins to sacrifice, and now I have them. You have lead your lambs to slaughter, and now our feast can begin. And we will bathe the gods in blood, and put an end to the SIS our once cruel master, the machine of justice...Justice too is artwork, how are you better than I? Hypocrite, bloody pig...And a fool, in the end, Sherlock the Idiot..."

"So you plan a betrayal for your Valkyrie? What's your motive there?"

"One last elaborate murder, to give me a name forever. Virgins to burn, along with you Sherlock, guides to your damnation. I mean to betray them ,to sacrifice them, to savagely murder them where the police will find them. Don't you see, they are only collateral damage to our problem, a puzzle you couldn't solve,innocent young girls you could not save. Innocent lives that trusted me,and will die for no reason, save only that I am bored,and ready to end this, and you have kept me waiting...a God-awfully long time. In the end I am Hamlet the Dark Prince of Denmark. You are the ghost that would not stay entombed, the Laertes that will die at the end, but not before you witness the final act, and the Valkyrie are Ophelia...Collateral damage."

"What of the others?"

"Oh, you mean your friends? They are Horatio, they will watch you die, or they will die themselves...You will be the one to determine this."

"You want me to solve my own murder?"

"No, I want you to plot it."

"I think we should meet in person."

"You want me to swear to you ,Ghost? To make bargains with the dead?"

"No I want you to challenge me. And either you bury me, or I you, or we bury each other and shake hands in hell. But if harm comes to any one of the lives we have discussed, then God help you. Hell will be as happy a city as Copenhagen, for you to escape to from the nightmares I will cause you."

Then Sherlock hung up in Sebastian Moran's head, and smiled at his gaping friends.

"He took the bait...Now we need only wait for him, I promise you we will see him, pasty drama mask, and floating King Leer cape, and all...The man's a total imbecile, and a waste of criminal talent. I've had better cases from street thugs with crowbars..."Sherlock rolled his eyes, and went to the counter, to order himself something for supper.

The others exchanged nervous glances,stricken utterly speechless by Sherlock Holmes.


	14. Chapter 13: Star Without Fault

**Chapter 13: A Star Without Fault~**

A long moment passed, and a silence fell, and Mycroft ordered food for himself as well, and went and sat beside the Major, something weighing heavy on his mind, that could only be disclosed in confidence to a man who knew the weight of guilt. Sherlock had dismissed himself, and had bought breaded fish, and mulled wine, and sat in utter silence, picking at his supper, and periodically checking his mobile.

John had stood for a while in the ringing silence ,a cool ,teary wind rising like breath from the sea, running its fingers through his hair, like a mother fare -welling a child. He shook his head ,speechless, wondering what on earth had just happened...pondering the path his life had taken. And then, unable to bear the silence, or the sorrow of the wind anymore, he went and sat beside Sherlock, arms folded.

"So...are you going to explain to me what just happened?"

"A gambit with the devil..." Sherlock answered, taking a long sip of his wine.

"Please, tonight, speak English to me. What was that about?"

Sherlock set down the wineglass, and turned to John ,piercing his soul like the arctic mist, in the way he looked straight into his eyes.

"I have played this "Game" back into my hand. He knows that we are at a stalemate, whatever he does now, I can trap him in it. But I must protect my friends from his brutality, and so neither of us are ready as yet to move. I have given him an open-ended invitation to meet in person, and make parley. Settle the score between us,...no lives lost..."

"Except...for yours...That's what that "plotting your own murder" bit was about?"

Sherlock made to ignore the question, taking another long almost nervous pull off the wine, before John grabbed his wrist, and pulled the glass from his shaking hand, and took him by the shoulders, forcing him about to facing him.

"Look...at...me..." he pleaded, and Sherlock did. And for a long moment they stared at one another, not knowing what to say.

For what does one say to the man who dies to protect him with out a single question about his choice?

A star without fault, his best man...and would he remain in the world, the night embodied, an asylum for falsely accused warriors, and broken souls?

"Are you at risk of being made into a human sacrifice for us again?" John asked, wading into the question reluctantly.

Sherlock smiled, pale features flushed a winter evening red from the wine he'd been drinking...

"Yes."

Silence pervaded, silence like that shocking sound that followed the great oak to the ground, when the mighty tree crashes to ice-hardened Winter's floor.

"If I was wrong, if there was another way...If I could be saved ,John...would you save me?" Sherlock asked out of the blue.

"Would I?" John laughed,bitterly. How dare he ask such a question, after all that he had done, how could he deserve anything less in return?

"Of course I would...Even if it were impossible...I wil find a way."

Sherlock let a calm slow smile spread across his face.

"Then there should be nothing to fear, should there?" he asked, as his mobile came to life with a text.

He held it up for John to see .

THE GRAVEYARD. YOU KNOW THE PLACE. RIGHT NOW. BRING DOCTOR WATSON, THE MAJOR,AND YOUR QUIVERING BROTHER TOO.-SM.

Sherlock nodded, raven hair shaking like autumn leaves being murdered by the Winter's cold dark soul.

Sherlock looked up at John, and John took his face by either side in firm hands.

"Look into my eyes, and listen _very _closely to what I say to you ,Sherlock Holmes..."

Sherlock swallowed, preparing himself.

"I promise...on your soul. You will not Fall again." he smiled then, near tears for the umpteenth time since he'd received Sherlock to himself alive.

"I know." Sherlock reassured, with a nod, and a smile.

The two got up to roust Mycroft and Sholto, who were looking their way already with concern.

"I believe my brother's life, is now in your hands." Mycroft said softly to Sholto.

"Mine."

"Consider it a chance at redemption. Doctor Watson will try, but he will fail without your support. Only you can save the young men now. So, do so, Major, redeem yourself!"

The Major felt a darkness coming over him, and the weight of responsibility...he knew what he would have to do...


	15. Chapter 14: Spotless Lamb

**Chapter 14: Spotless Lamb but Lion's Heart~**

They approached on feet as faint as the tread of chimney smoke ,over the sleeping dead.

There in the center of the graveyard, on top of the tomb of Milverton, in the ashes of his casket, stood a man in a long blood-red coat. He turned, a grim scar-faced smile on his face.

"Moran." Mycroft addressed him, and Sherlock took a few steps forward, positioning himself directly in front of John, much to the young doctor's desperate irritation.

"Doctor Watson?" Moran asked, and shoving Sherlock out of his way, John stepped up.

"Me, that's me, Hello." he nodded, face grim.

"Let him be, Sebastian. Your problem is with me." Sherlock called.

Sebastian smiled at Sherlock. "My vendetta is with you. So I will make you suffer any means I can...What a beautiful ,perfect place for us to meet, to end our long time feud, Laertes!

Forgive me, but I have my estate to discuss with my Horatio..."

The Great Accomplice leaped down, and stood directly in front of John whose face was utterly unreadable. He was secretly forming a plan to where if anybody was the casuality here it would be either Moran ,or himself.

It seemed a grim idea, but John was more than willing to die for Sherlock, certainly not only to return the repeated favor.

"What a wonderful enigma you are...Doctor Watson... A strangely provocative phenomena...The one man that could get to the heart of Sherlock Holmes...The one man who could survive the very craft of James Moriarty. Probably one of the most unassuming, certainly most outwardly ordinary men to ever draw the air...A spotless lamb but a lion's heart...Tell me, what makes you so special,...someone worth all the affliction of the greatest detective that ever breathed...? Tell me how you claimed his soul, so I can take it from you, extract it from your very bones, piece by every piece..."

John laughed hotly, and rolled his neck, "I'm not half as clever as you lot. I don't do all this metaphor rubbish. How'd I get to Sherlock Holmes? Haven't the faintest...but one thing I'm pretty sure of...I didn't have to commit a thousand murders to get his attention. And then there's one thing that I'm _absolutely _SPOT ON.."(low growling sharp hiss of these words) "about...You can grind my bones to powdered sugar...You won't touch not a single piece of him...Not while I breathe, not when I'm snow-cold dead white dust, got it?"

Sherlock's breath had caught in his throat, not afraid for John all of a sudden. He had never truly realized how powerful his unassuming doctor was under his calm, kind face. Now he actually feared Sebastian Moran would have his neck snapped before he could finish his next thought, and that made him smile, but he still had a score to settle. How to divert the Great Accomplice away from John?

"Your business is with me, Moran. This has always been our war..."Sherlock said stepping forward,but John grabbed him by his arm, and pulled him protectively close to himself, pinned by the arm as if under arrest.

"Yeah, and to get to him, you will have to go through me first... I've been watching this show now for long enough to know how it works; I'm ready for your worst..."

"Oh, how very noble ,Doctor. But I know Sherlock...he won't let you get the glory for this...nor take the fall now will he? I have a proposition for the lot of you...a choice to be made in the end. "

Suddenly Sebastian flicked on a high beam flash light, and shone it deeper into the graveyard, where the Valkyrie were all gagged, and tied by electric wire to a huge stack of tires.

"This is my thought..." Sebastian breathed, as Sherlock gaped in horror understanding instantly what this meant, although it was taking the others a moment.

"Men of morals such as you are...will want to do this the diplomatic way. I could flip a coin, diplomatically. Heads is Sherlock ,tails is John,no? Whichever it lands on, is the one who goes into the fire. Unbiased chance...my debt appeased either way, Mr. Holmes. Or the two of you can take it into your own hands,the barbarous come-to-blows way, and fight each other over who goes in..."

Sebastian pulled out a gun and a coin. "Whichever man wins, goes into the fire, and I shoot the other for pity's sakes."

Sherlock's mouth was gaping, and he would not look at John who was already popping his knuckles, ready to knock Sherlock unconscious where he would not feel a thing.

"What about myself? Who's to say I will allow this to happen?" Mycroft interjects ,coldly.

"You're a fugitive, running away from my plan to use you to corrupt your precious Services...You have no contact with your masters; no one can save you now. You will be the whore of my Work whether your brother dies or whether you somehow feebly manage to save him from this fate. You could get down on your knees, you could beg me, that might change my mind."

"Never."

Moran cocks his gun, and Sherlock shrinks to John's side, wrapping his arms around him, in one last attempt to shield him, face on fire with fury.

"Come boys, let's do this like men of principle. Step back from each other, shake hands on it. One of you will win the prize of the painless death, let it be the best man."

"Then give me the gun; let me shoot him myself! HE is the best man!" John hissed, and Sherlock thrust his hands hard into John's chest.

"Don't be absurd! Your vendetta is with me, Sebastian! Make me to suffer for your vengeance..."

"Either way I am about to...Beg me ,Sherlock."

"I am a man of reason to the end...No,I will not beg you. But forgive me ,John, if I break your neck to spare you all this..."

"You won't get a chance..." John smiled grimly,ready for the fight-to-the-death with his dearest friend.

Sherlock had a look of apology on his face. 'Thought I had him where I wanted him.' his eyes said.

'It's ok ,mate.' John's smile said back.

Mycroft bowed his head, and the heavens began to gently weep for the tragic end to these the very best of friends...The three men standing here all brothers, and all of them Hamlet in the end.

"Turning like wolves on each other...And here I thought the lot of you were men of morals, men of reputation!" Sebastian jeered.

"They are, perhaps." said the voice of the Major, as a gun was chambered.

Sherlock turned slowly to look, and Sebastian smiled grimly,as Sherlock laughed, giving John a nervous smile,

"See, see! There's always that one something that you fail to fold into the cards!" he jeered.

" I always kept the Jokers closer than the Queen..." the Major laughed, and Sebastian shook his head.

"I have failed to factor nothing. I have brought you ring of white knights down, I have rendered you all like Lucifer's angels! Fallen from your pretty graces, right into my blood-stained hands, and mercy!"

"No, there is something you failed to calculate..." the Major smiled ,coldly, "I have been waiting for the day of justice too. Vengeance is the Lord's and it seems grace has finally given it to me...Did you forget that you robbed me of my soul, long ago? These may be a company of righteous men, but I am a Sinner damned for my failure to those boys that you murdered in cold blood. My youthen army in the pit of hell, their blood is on my hands, and in the end I am no Horatio, I am Heracle, I can dive deep into the River of the Dead, I can call upon my blood guilt ,and my demons will come!"

For the very first time, Sebastian Moran began to doubt himself.

"Too long have I stood by and allowed young men to be taken as collateral damage. This young man, this very incarnation of the balance of justice in the Universe, has called me forth to the light again, and given my destiny back into my hands. I am Invictus, the captain of my own black soul, the master of my fate. My own worst villain, and the vengeance I get today is against myself! "

Sebastian laughed, "Oh, so you're going to try and kill me then? Well let's talk about collateral damage, shall we?"


	16. Chapter 15: Sholto's Redemption

**Chapter 15: Sholto's Redemption~**

"I have a whole other deck of cards in my hand! You know nothing of the Blood Trade, nor of the move of Loki's Gauntlet, the enterprise of my piracy, these women I could sacrifice on a whim!

Sholto, you have nothing, except a guilty concious...And I have enough souls for collateral damage to spare, I have souls like old Milverton here had money to burn! " Sebastian smiled, overly confident yet again.

"No..."Sherlock corrected, and John looked at him, noticing something distant in his tone.

"What did you say?" Moran gasped, spinning on his heel.

"No, you are wrong. It is unwise to assume that you are winning just because you have the most options..."

Sherlock's eyes were closed. He was in the Mind Palace now.

"For you see desperation is the catalyst of invention. You have driven me to a part of myself I seldom go, and for that I thank you, because I have seen my Teacher again, from beyond the mortal veil. Your mistake is to threaten a dead man with death; you have forgotten that the Major and I died long before this battle began, and for ourselves there is nothing to lose, there is no threats to be made to a dead man, nor threat of harm to warn the broken, and we are these such men, we are the Sleep Walkers, and the envy of those who lie paralysed beneath our soles. Should you kill me in the body, this shall be the result. When you come to the Gates of Hell, there I will be waiting, a sword forged of my bones,and hardened in my will, and gilded red and eternally hot with my rage and blood, in my hand. The flaming brand of justice, and you will not escape it. Or I will hunt you with the thirst of the damned, and drink even the final drop of your blood, till it atones for every drop you shed of mine, and of these. If you free me from my lingering fragment, I will only have more reason to gather Justice; Justice being the very force which calls me to animation. Or you will fall to your knees and beg me for mercy, but you will not receive it. Kill me...and you unleash your worst demon. Lay a hand on John Watson,...and only God could help you...for the dead cannot die again, nor could my wound be eased; you would never cease to pay penance to me,...I would be the crueler master!"

"You talk big, Holmes...What faith should I put in empty threats of an after life..."

"Oh Moran, pretty little fool...I have been to the Other Side, and returned, didn't you hear? "Sherlock started laughing, and suddenly threw Mycroft his mobile..."Assuming you had the upper hand." he snickered.

Mycroft was immediately back in contact with his people, activating the GPS locator that he'd had programmed into Sherlock's phone for his surveillance,(some part of the how he had traced him to Denmark, before destroying his own means of contact). He sent out a text , confirming his identity and calling for reenforcement from a select few agents he knew could be trusted. The Ice Man himself had not been idle, before he'd taken to the Run. Unbeknownst to Sebastian Moran, Mycroft, using Sherlock, had already intercepted the plan against SIS ,tipping off his best team, and the mutiny was already overthrown. The Calvary would be here at a moment's notice.

"It was a bluff the whole time?" John laughed.

"Like I would actually be forced to hurt you, John."Sherlock scoffed.

" I've still got a gun..."Moran growled suddenly threatened, moving to shoot threw himself in front of him out of reflex. He flinched when the sound of a bullet echoed like whiplash against a damned man's back into the silent vigil of the Graveyard.

Moran fell cold upon the ground. Dead.

Sholto stood gun smoking in hand, head bowed...

"Now my debt to them is paid. My boys shall deal with him, Sherlock. Thanks for the offer,but remember, we need you alive."

One of the Valkryie screamed against her gag, and Mycroft snapped to attention: "Yes, of course, these women are refugees under our protection, and some of them criminals under our arrest!"he turned to look at Moran for a moment.

"His body will be kept as evidence...In the end, a goldfish only..." he said,clicking his tongue and turned to ungag the women, to ask them if they needed Doctor Watson's medical assistance.

Sholto silently turned away, disappearing into the night.

Sherlock and John stood together, in silence, beside the body of their Last Great Adversary.

"So...it's over now?" John asked after a long and weary silence.

Sherlock looked to the sky, as the glaring lights of black SUV's , Mycroft's Calvary come, tore like meteors through the night. He took a deep breath...

"Yes...And it did not end the way I expected..."

The two fell silent again, as Secret Intelligence agents began to swarm the scene.


	17. Chapter 16: Glorious Resign

**Chapter 16: Glorious Resign~**

Reclaiming this situation took many hours. Each Valkyrie had to be medically examined, and then the police were called in, along with the agents ,to draw up official files against them, and Sherlock was called upon to ,just by looking at them, solve every crime they ever committed, which he did. And then he began to help with dismantling the great Pyre of Moran, and with deductions for the body, but the wine he'd drunk earlier to appease his nerves in the wake of another brutal sacrifice, had rendered him ,at last, very sleepy, and he had been somehow swept along like the broom in your grandmother's kitchen, until he was laying in the bed of some agent's jacked up dual pickup truck,wrapped in a shock blanket, and more three quarters than half asleep. If only he could shut his brain off!

Faintly as he drifted between sleep and waking, he could see into his mind palace, the room where his Teacher was sitting, with watery glasses that He turned into wine...

"Well done, Sherlock...Your heart, I see, is ready for greater things to come..."faintly he heard the Galilean from his Lazarus night saying...

And then it was John's voice in his ear, "Oi, budge over, mate..." He felt the young doctor curling up behind him, wrapped in his own shock blanket ,equally tired...

"I can see him ,John, the evidence of things hoped for...Told me you were a sign of all that is good...My light..."

"Who did you see, Sherlock?" John asked, more so half than three quarters of the way asleep.

"God..." he muttered, as if that were obvious.

John sat up, mind cleared of sleep for a moment, for that instance wondering about the world after life, and hoping that he would be with Sherlock there. Never wanting to let him out of his sight again, now that he had him back...He smiled, and laid down again.

* * *

"It has been decided...you are not to be charged with the death of Sebastian Moran, but rather we shall tell the press when they nose into it that it was an act of self defense. And my superiors have come to the unanimous conclusion that it was a just act of capital punishment ,on your part. We even think you should be reinstated."

Major Sholto saluted Mycroft then. "Actually, I would like to submit my resignation, and apply for a new position."

"Oh?" Mycroft asked, with a ghost of a smile.

"Yes...I believe Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, themselves functioning as if one unit, are in need of a body guard..."

"Then a body guard you shall be, my vindicated friend! "Mycroft laughed, and shook his hand firmly, and the two turned to look at Sherlock and John as they lay, oblivious to how odd they looked curled up like that.

"Symbiosis..." Mycroft remarked.

"Most likely the most truly remarkable thing about the whole Consulting Detective operation, I should say ,is the Holmes and Watson dynamic. They are one operation...one life...and so they need a body guard between them."

"I couldn't agree more with you, Major. The two together are a force that cannot be reckoned with, no matter how one were to calculate it..."

* * *

More asleep but still more awake than Sherlock, John suddenly wrapped his arms around his chest, and pressed himself into his back, leaning close to his ear.

"Now that the War is finally over,you know what that means?"

"I hate to disappoint you ,John, but a consulting detective doesn't make holiday pay..." Sherlock muttered, a hand drooping like willow fronds over his face.

"Oi,not that...though, wait...no bloody holiday?...No, Sherlock, we could go home. You and me, go shares on the flat again. Just like we said we would all those years ago when you took the Viper's Nest mission. Just like we did until the day you died. And I'd like that again, if you want...To mend the fence...to be a team again...We were always meant to be this way, you know? And I don't think we should let a little thing like war and death change that, I mean, what greater lesson can you learn from all of this, than that, redemption comes to anybody that's looking for it? And it will even come and find you, if you only ask ..."

Sherlock rolled over in John's arms, sleep-bleary eyes lighting up like lights on Christmas, with the concept of forgiveness.

"Do people really have happy endings...in their real lives?"

"I don't know...But we could...What do you say...shall we start again?"

There was a silence ,and then Sherlock smiled, almost in tears...

He extended a hand, and they shook on it.

"John?"

"Yes..."

"We're ACTUALLY going home now?"

John started crying, and laughing all at once...

"Yes...Home. To Baker Street. Our asylum, and I mean that any way you want to define that word..."he chuckled, and ran a hand over Sherlock's tousled hair...

"Home...to stay."

Sherlock smiled, and for the very first time in too long, John could say he saw hope kindled in his eyes.

With a content nod, and a muttered, "Alright, go t'sleep then..."he rolled back over, and fell fast asleep himself.

John smiled, resting his head on Sherlock's back,not caring what the others might say about them, just glad to have him back from the dead.

What kind of mercy? Asylum...he cried himself to sleep,with thankful tears for one more miracle. And justice ,at last, justice for all...

**~The End~**


End file.
